Fleur Du Mal
Member
|
Chapter One
Old Wounds
“Bye, Dad!” two bright-eyed girls waved their brisk goodbyes to their father, who stood on a gravel parking area. Josh Raven smiled and waved back, proud to see his two beautiful children walk towards the camp supervisor, full of anticipation, their shiny-black ponytails swinging along their pouncing, carefree steps.
“I'll see you on Monday, girls! Emily, take good care of your little sister! And Wendy, you stick to the ponies, as agreed, right?” Josh gave his last directions before nodding to Glenn, the camp's instructor and his friend. Had he not personally known him, he had most likely denied his twelve- and seven-year-olds from participating on this weekend horse-trip without their parents. Knowing that he could trust this man to keep his daughters save – especially Wendy, who seemed frighteningly fearless for her age from her parents' point of view – Josh opened the door to his car, ready to head back to the city.
Once seated in his light-gray jeep, Josh took a deep breath. The pleasant scent of leather originating from the newly refurbished seats surrounded him and overpowered the pungent smell of horse-dung in his nostrils. He waited for his daughters to vanish behind the near wooden barn before he buckled up and turned the engine on. As the air-co started to cool his skin with its steady hum, he gave out a sigh of relief. Even the forty-one years he had roamed the streets of Georgia, hadn't quite cured him from hating the humid mid-July air that drenched clothes already early in the morning.
The motor ran smoothly, as he stepped on the gas and drove away from the farm, gravel flinging to the air from the spinning tires. Turning the radio on and switching between channels, he searched for any blessed wavelength that would carry funky jazz into his ears. Upon seeing a note on the dashboard, he remembered his obligations: Next stop, groceries...
As Josh neared the outskirts of Atlanta, he felt inexplicably happy. Every single little detail of his life seemed to be just as it should be. His girls were happy, Emily was pulling straight-As in school, and his own job as a medium-rank project manager was more than satisfying, bringing enough money to spoil the girls once in a while like this. To add to the bliss, his wife was content with her job, and, most importantly, she loved him dearly. Thinking about his lovely Lizzy made him whistle as he pulled into the parking lot of the Ravens' regular shopping paradise. Spontaneously, he added Swiss chocolates and sparkling wine to the shopping list before getting all of his six feet five lean inches out of the vehicle, ready to commit his duty as the current weekend's appointed food-donkey.
Back home, Josh picked up two heavy grocery-bags from the backseat of his jeep. Balancing them, he managed to push the car door shut and carry them from the driveway to the light-blue-painted front porch, where he laid them on a table to dig out his keys. He could have just rang the doorbell, since he expected his wife to be at home, but he was counting on her to be in the workroom, adding her famous finishing touches to whatever articles she currently worked on. Since the room in question had been built in the basement with a pretty effective sound-proofing, there was a good chance that she hadn't heard his car. Hoping to have an opportunity to surprise her, Josh used the finally-found keys to sneak in as silently as he could.
The kitchen stood completely empty. Josh quickly emptied the bags, leaving the chocolates on the counter and putting the wine to ice. Then, just as he was planning to insert his favorite singer's record into the player, he heard a low sound of laughter from downstairs. The unknown voice was followed shortly by Elizabeth's bright, happy voice, as she joined in. Josh's face darkened. Please, God, not today, he thought, leaving John Legend's CD in its covers, and turning to the basement door.
Elizabeth's job as freelancer reporter occasionally forced her to toil away outside the regular business hours. Despite the fact that Josh was fully aware of this, he still felt hurt that she had signed in for an unannounced interview for this weekend. Editing a set of nearly finished articles and hitting the send-button was something he could understand her doing today, but this... Realizing that his plans for spending some serious quality time were evaporating by the minute; he started to get ticked off. How often did we even have the slightest chance to spend time by ourselves, just the two of us. Hardly ever...
Josh was acquainted with the working methods his wife used to fish out confidential stuff from the people she interviewed. When it came to creating a cosy atmosphere and making the whole session feel like it was just two friends talking, laughing, and sharing life experiences, Lizzy was the wizard. A stranger rushing into the scene without introduction would do nothing but damage to her work. Mr. Raven knew better than to interrupt the well-disguised third degree she was currently giving her guest, so he stopped by the the work-room's slightly ajar door, advancing no further, and listened.
“So, you're not going to tell me how much the mayor in question has inspired you when writing the Frank Spears character, are you, Mr. Marshall?” he heard Elizabeth ask, her voice still full of laughter. Josh faintly recognized the name Marshall to belong to a young writer, who had just accomplished a best-selling novel about an arrogant, womanizing, and rotten-to-the-core politician. The majority of the public had connected the dots and figured out the resemblance between the fictive character and its possible real life counterpart, though the author hadn't spilled the beans about how he had made him up. Or even more interestingly, where he had dug out all the information that wasn't common knowledge.
“Well, others have already tried to fish that info out of me. So far, none of them have succeeded. I don't usually go on exposing my writing methods,” came the author's amused reply.
“You mean you couldn't cope with the lawsuits that would follow?” Josh heard his wife say, followed by a brief chuckle by Mr. Marshall.
“As a beginning author, I wouldn't have the money to settle those, if my current lawyer should fail,” he answered, giving in a little, knowing very well that for Elizabeth, this was as good as an affirmation.
“You don't have a girlfriend who could pay for a better lawyer?” his wife continued on with her job.
“Please, tell me, why are all interviewers so interested in my private life?” came the man's answer after another hearty laugh.
“It's not us interviewers, it's the readers,” Elizabeth answered
“Oh, really? Prove that,” Mr. Marshall retorted with a tone that further increased Josh's annoyance. He decided to shift a little to take a peek into the room, cursing the whole situation:
Had the door been closed to begin with, I wouldn't have even heard anything. And would've been spared from this stupid espionage...
“Well, it's not all the interviewers. But let's go back to your writing. Is there going to be a sequel?” Elizabeth said, trying to return to their initial roles; she presented the questions, he was supposed to be answering them.
The two people inside the room continued their conversation completely unaware of their audience.
Some old devil, a ghost of jealousy, woke up deep inside of Josh as he looked in. Of course, he didn't suspect his wife to be doing anything inappropriate. In the past eight years, she'd constantly thrived in proving her dedication to him, steering clear from anything suspicious, being the perfected example of a perfect wife. However, as Josh took in the appearance of Mr. Marshall, he shook to the core, his hands clenching and his knuckles whitening. The man looked like an identical image of Mike O'Reilly. Mikey. The man, no, the boy who almost broke our marriage...
Josh suspected that he could be clinically proven bi-polar by now, so fast this wave of rage rose to swipe off the inexplicable, all-encompassing happiness he had felt just a moments before. Maybe that's the reason... My fits of happiness are always inexplainable whereas the causes of my raging and depressing can not be refuted with reason... Of course, Mikey would now be a lot older, not looking like this twenty-something, grinning redhead with green eyes and pale, smooth skin, and teeth that had been recently whitened, courtesy of the publisher, no doubt. But seeing Lizzy chatting with this incarnation of the careless jerk who'd wounded him beyond reason, proved to be too much for Josh on that fatal Saturday. He turned on his heels and rushed out of the basement, out of their charming, renovated, Southern style bungalow, slamming the door shut behind him.
Outside, he crammed himself back behind the wheel and started driving towards downtown with all thoughts blanked within his brains. As a cruel fit of irony, the DJ on the radio put on Slow Dance, twisting some tears out of Josh's eyes. The song ended before its time, as he quite violently silenced his insensitive radio, letting out a certain word he was happy his daughters weren't around to hear.
Arriving at Piedmont Park, he got out of his car and started walking, to sweat out the rage. Despite an hour's worth of exercise, his insides continued boiling until he couldn't continue. Sitting down on a bench, he hung his head and tried to catch his breath. Out of the blue, a pair of bronze-tanned legs with regular sneakers without socks stopped in front of him. He raised his head and saw a youngish woman standing in front of him, dressed in a pink T-shirt and indigo shorts. Josh felt too tired to even notice how cute she was and how she turned some heads just by standing there. Without asking if he'd mind, she sat down beside him and started talking.
“You look like you could do with a break,” she said, in between chewing some fruity bubble gum. Josh turned to look at this odd beauty. Her expression and the manner she assessed him surprised him with the intelligence she had shining beneath. Then he returned to study his own feet, a pastime he'd never get a degree with, thinking,
So, she's not an airhead. Who cares?
The woman's next question turned his life upside down.
“Are you trapped because you do not know what you truly want?” she asked. Before Josh could recover from hearing such an intrusive inquiry from a complete stranger, she threw in another one. “Or is it because you already know what you want but are just too afraid to embrace your desires? Is that why you run around here, lost and trying to sweat them out off your system?”
Who the hell gave you the permission to find me out?
< Message edited by fabula -- 8/25/2008 9:07:22 >
|
Printable Version
Icon Legend
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread
