Lady-killer

"New York is my home. I have always stayed there, starting from the day that I was born. My mom is a retired elementary school teacher and my dad is an electrician. We didn't move around the country like most American families are fond of doing because both my parents had steady jobs. When I examine you—seriously speaking—your face points toward New Mexico."

We erupt into an uncontrolled frenzy of laughter. Her palm taps my arm mischievously and I avenge myself by throwing her a sarcastic wink. Our palms slap before a spun out yawn escapes my unclosed mouth. I am not feeling sleepy, believe me. Even if I crashed on a sofa or a bed right now, I would not dive into slumber.

"You amaze me, Alice, do you realize that? You have imagined my birthplace with astounding exactness. I am from New Mexico indeed. Will you please tell me how you performed this brilliant trick of yours, sorceress?"

Finding a use for my two smooth fingers, I give her silky-fleshed cheek a frolicsome nip, and she sings, "Ouch!" Her teeth gnash in the end and she consigns me a graceless scowl.

"I'm no magician, Rita. I am solely gifted at predicting things with dire accuracy. You must not ever call me a sorceress again, do you hear me?"

Her hands uplift—which I deem to be a gesture of unconditional surrender. "I get it. I will not ever call you a sorceress again."

"Good girl." My hand stretches to her farther arm and my fingers claw her hot pink shirt. The remote café grows bigger and bigger, showing off its giant crystalline glasses as well as its innumerable clients who are gobbling diverse snacks like they are flies assembled on garbage.

We occupy two bare seats accompanying a deserted table. The giant disc-shaped table stationed alongside us embraces ten vacant chairs while the rest of the slabs and their numerous seats have been taken up. Rita first props her elbows against our table before she utilizes her hands to carry her face. Her pensive eyes arrow at me and her nostrils open out to release a lazy, rugged breath. "You don't seem to notice what I am seeing from here," she expresses.

I fail to grasp what she is talking about; I solely grant her a baffled gawk. "What are you talking about, sweetheart? I don't understand what you are saying."

"Do you see those boys seated around that table—far there on our right? They are all staring at you and I definitely know why. You are very beautiful, Alice. Every boy in our class has unquestionably dished the dirt about you at one point or another. Tell me something: Has any lucky guy proposed to you yet, and have you replied him with a, 'Yes'? I want you to be honest with me. I used to date a while ago but I am now regrettably single." Tears glitter in her eyes while she utters these words. I gaze into their depth and I spot this heavy bulk of sadness which is cruelly oppressing her soul. The ache to apprehend more about her unfortunate love pesters me all of a sudden.

My lips snap, then they lengthen apart, and my enthusiastic tongue tastes my lower lip—all set to team up with my brain in spewing out words that will be translated from its quiet thoughts. This is what follows:

All the tables are positioned far away from the door except for ours. A rapid squeal follows it as it oscillates open, enticing me to swerve my head and to peek at the newcomer. There are four girls, and two boys, walking together. The girls are all blond and scrawny and they are wearing the same brand of jeans and camisoles and flat shoes—Ellie Elizabeth! What do we have here: A gangster squad?

The boys look a bit messy in sharp contrast to the immaculate girls. One is Asian-American and the other one is Caucasian. I know that last guy! He is Chris (who freed me from those hoodlums who mugged me on my way here somewhere during mid morning). Two girls promenade beside him, clasping his waist and cracking jokes and laughing frenetically. Oh my God! I didn't know that he was a Casanova. And I was already starting to fall for him! This guy loves to seduce girls and to have his wicked way with them. I will not allow myself to become his next victim!

My gaze reverts to Rita at full speed and my tongue throws up these ear-splitting words, "Thanks for telling me that I am beautiful. Many boys have said that to me, but trust me: I have never believed them, not even for a single moment. I always thought that they solely fancied to flatter me. Since this is coming from your lips, I will place my whole trust in what you are saying. You are terribly beautiful as well, Rita." I grab her hand, caressing it tenderly, and I simultaneously strip naked my flawless pair of thirty-two fit-as-a-fiddle teeth.

Someone grabs a chair laid on the lone table overlooking us. My ears squeak while its hoofs rake the floor. I veer to check the person who is causing this commotion. It is Chris, I find out. His eyes promptly narrow at me in a savage manner. My neck speedily swings and my strayed gaze strokes Rita's afresh; she anxiously reacts, "I don't know how to tell you this, Alice. Good heavens, where do I even start from? Okay...there is this certain guy who is interested in you...and he sent me to—"

We both giggle like we have been flogged with unanticipated madness before Rita notches up another opportunity to finish her incomplete sentence. I gather my hair on my right side and it freely leans over my chest, somewhat veiling my medium-sized breast. I have very long hair by the way. It reaches as far as my waist when collected on my back in its entirety.

"You are laughing at me, aren't you?" She accuses me.

"No," I repudiate, "I am not laughing at you. I am laughing at myself. Trouble seems to follow me wherever I go."

She pets my shoulder courteously. "You don't have to worry about him. He is a very sweet, very friendly, and very charming guy. You will fall in love with him the minute you will lay your eyes on him."

"Please tell me his name. I am now curious to know everything about him. I have been single for so long and I am dying to fall in love afresh."

"Raymond is his first name. I won't reveal his further details. You will meet him very soon, and that day is going to change your whole life forever, I can guarantee you."

Rita's tender fingers rub my chin. I aim to repress a smirk but I fail to attain this. "Thank you."

"You are thanking me for what?"

"For this snack; it is really delicious."

I strive not to stare in Chris' direction. We are now through with our snacking; we immediately rise and take our leave. While Rita closes the door behind me, I pause momentarily to inhale mouthfuls of fresh air. My lungs slowly fill up, gorging me with sweet, tickling sensations.

"Are you okay, Alice? You acted tense while we were inside there. What is bothering you?"

I come to a standstill halfway the stairs and then I wheel around abruptly. "It was him," that is all I manage to breathe.

We clamber down the stairs shoulder to shoulder. "Who?"

The door behind us squeals open and we reverse forthwith. Christopher's well-proportioned figure gluts my anxious eyesight. He marches straight toward me, asserting, "You didn't trouble yourself to greet me, did you?"

With lightning speed, my eyelids fasten and then they tear apart. "I'm so sorry. You had company, didn't you? I didn't want to interrupt your happy moment with your...mates."

"How are you?" He finally questions me. Rita scarcely moves; she freezes still like she has been stroked with abrupt paralysis; her ears are pinned back nonetheless and they are undoubtedly following our conversation.

"I am not fine. I have a slight headache and I will now go home and rest, if you don't mind."

"I have a car. I will be extremely delighted to take you home. I see you walking there every day, which is a very healthful and recommendable thing to do."

"You burden yourself too much, Chris. As you can see, I'm with my best friend, Rita. Rita, please meet Chris. He saved me this morning from a bunch of ruffians who almost molested me on a crowded street. Chris, Rita will take me home in her car. I appreciate your friendly offer but I cannot accept it."

His hand extracts a pint-sized card from his wallet before he holds it out to me. "I am Christopher Hawthorne. Please feel free to get in touch with me any time of the day."

"I can never thank you enough over what you did for me this morning." I snatch his card and speedily wheel to conclude my last flight of stairs. Rita follows me thereafter. A coarse tinkle fondles my eardrums while Chris retreats into the eatery. I finally spot a bin on the terrace and I briskly turn around to inspect if he is still spying on us. His image fails to greet my expectant eyes. My foot jabs the bin's pedal and its lid harmoniously flips open to lay bare stacks of filth mixed with humming flies and twisting maggots. My fingers forsake the card's smooth facets. It lands on the nauseating junk with an ephemeral tap.

The heels of my shoes slam the sidewalk repeatedly as I race toward Rita; she lashes out, "You should have refused to take his card instead of throwing it into the bin. Its appearance was suffice to tell me that it has cost him a lot of money to print it. How dare you throw away megabucks, Alice?"

"Don Juans like him are stubborn. I don't have to clarify this to you. You are a matured woman and you know that I am telling the irrefutable truth here. They don't take a 'no' for a no. I did what I had to and I am not going to welcome any regrets."

We clamber into her Nissan Dart and she swiftly pulls out of the parking lot. I survey every single route that she takes; prepared to stop her from going into the wrong direction should the need to ever do so arise. It seems that she has never bothered to memorize Lordschild's straightforward map. Lordschild is the ugly name for the beautiful neighborhood where Camilla and I reside. "You must avoid that jerk by all means possible," she admonishes me; "He is the worst Tom that our university has ever accommodated."

"I am not interested in him. Keeping away from him will surely be easy to accomplish, Rita."

"You can't fool me, Alice, no matter how hard you try. You are drawn to that boy. Any sane person can easily prove this."

I scowl at her. Why does she look so positive? "What are you saying, Rita? Are you out of your mind? How can I be captivated by a Casanova? Stop making fun of me, I beg you."

"You begun to act tense the minute he entered the cafeteria with those two girls. I was monitoring you, Alice. You also avoided looking at him. Something tells me that you're dying to get closer to him deep down in your heart."

"If I am really interested in him, don't you think that I wouldn't have thrown away his contact card?"

"I will reverse this car right now and we will go back and fetch it if you direct me to do so."

I slap her cheek gently. She almost splits into two thanks to her demented laughter. I tease her, "You are a silly girl, honey."

I find the house empty. It is 6.27 PM and Camilla still hasn't returned. Where she has gone with Ian? Could they have flown out of state—possibly embarking on a honeymoon?

Darkness engulfs every room of our flat. I switch on the lights everywhere aside from the kitchen. I am full already. I will not dare to touch the pots tonight. Camilla told me that she would not come back here famished. I hope that she will not forget to bring me my promised chocolate. I love Cadbury and I am so derangedly addicted to it! If it weren't that overpriced, I would buy it everyday, I swear.

8.23 PM strikes. A motorcar's noisy hum suddenly interferes with my sprouting nap. My heart breaks from its perpetual pounding and excitement instantaneously pours into my veins, enticing me to jump up and do some bit of dancing—which I smoothly succumbed to. I dash to the window, riddled with curiosity, and then I aggressively rip the pale silver curtains. There Camilla comes, lifting a 'SPAR' tagged plastic bag. Yes! She is bringing me my favorite chocolate! I sprint to the door and leap at her.

"Alice, you are still awake," she registers surprise, "I thought that you are already in bed."

I lavish her with chirpy smiles and warm hugs. "You journeyed with my sleep, Camilla. I couldn't find it here. I tried and tried for hours...but I couldn't bag any nap. Now that you are finally here, I will be able to sleep soundly."

Shrieks of deranged laughter gnaw my ears. "Here is your chocolate, honey. You couldn't sleep because of it and not because I was not here. The witch who cast this invincible spell on you must have been a die-hard fan of chocolate."

"Goodnight, Camilla," I voice, yawning and stretching my hands feebly. Sleepiness now consumes me but I swear: I will only bow to it once I have polished off this entire chocolate.

Minutes later, I close my eyes and patiently wait for it to show its irresistible face. Twenty minutes elapse, yet I fail to spot even the tiniest signs of its approach. I choose to contemplate instead. Chris batters my mind again and again. I hate him! I despise him a lot and I don't ever want to see his nasty face again! He is such a shameless womanizer, isn't he? Boys like him fetch decent girls (like me) trouble and nothing else. Rita was right: I must do everything within my potential to avoid forming any sort of affiliation with him. Could Raymond be a sweet, guiltless, and loving man? I will not criticize him so soon because I have not met him yet.

Soft rays of orange light sprawl throughout my small room, magnifying my eyesight and polishing it up. I turn this side, reverse that way, but I still can't sleep. Maybe turning off the light would help put me to sleep? My slack hand reaches for the switch and I tune it gradually. An appalling chunk of darkness devours my clear eyesight. Go to sleep, Alice: I keep repeating this anthem to myself. My eyelids bolt at long last and I peacefully dip into a sea of delicious-flavored dreams.

Today has been very tiresome. I can't wait for tomorrow to dawn. I can't wait to meet Raymond and to see what will follow next. I want to fall in love again, beautifully and peacefully this time. My past two fiancées were terrible and treacherous. Will I hit the jackpot this time, or maybe I will lose over and over? I am certain that time is suppressing the answers to my questions and it will disclose them bit by bit.

Something aggressively knocks my cheek, scattering tingles of ache all through my head before it blows my dream sky-high and impels me to wake up. My eyes break open and I sit on my tattered bed in an indolent fashion. Dawn has already surfaced. Plentiful sunshine rays gush mildly into my bedroom, embracing my furnishings in splendid white. I shake my head violently, aspiring to fight off the heavy drowsiness that is seizing me; my weary eyes scour my hushed room and they straight away sight Camilla—who sits on the edge of my bed, gawking at me in creepy silence.

"Camilla, you interrupted my sleep, didn't you?" I manage to ask before a spun-out yawn ducks my lips and my hands stretch out on their own correspondently.

"I had to," she echoes with solemnity, "I slapped you so that you could stop dreaming."

"That hurt a lot, Camilla. Why did you have to do that?"

Her eyes roll and her hands squeeze into solid fists. "Who is Chris, Alice? You were shouting his name repeatedly. What were you exactly dreaming about, sweetheart? I want to know everything."

I scratch my head, frisking my memory, but there is nothing that I can call up.

"I see," she notices, "You can't even remember what you were dreaming about. It's okay. Go back to sleep and enjoy more sweet dreams starring you and your Christopher. I certainly won't return here to disrupt your senseless fantasy." She promptly finds her feet and wheels around to leave.

My voice tolls twice louder than I purpose it to sound, "Camilla, please stop! I now remember what I was dreaming about. I had a very bad dream. There was this demon called Chris who wanted to drag me to hell with him. I screamed his name repeatedly, begging him to let go off me."

A frenetic giggle pours forth from her ajar mouth and her back bumps into the wall simultaneously. A loud thud follows, but she keeps on laughing and staggering aimlessly. What is wrong with her? Does she think that I am telling ridiculous jokes here? Of course, I am lying, but I don't expect her to get suspicious about this so easily! She must never find out the whole truth!

"You act very well, Alice. Sadly, I am not stupid enough to swallow your white lies. You weren't screaming the way that Adelaide Clemens does in Silent Hill: Revelation. You screamed Christopher's name slowly and nicely like a woman who is falling in love."

I am stuck. I have made every effort thinkable—guessing that I am going to hoodwink her with effortless success—but she is not dull enough to believe any of my laughable lies! I did my best to trick Rita as well, but she is not dumb either! It seems that I will never be good at pretending. Anyone can plainly tell that I am under Christopher's infatuation spell. What will I do now? At this moment, I am feeling lost and confused altogether.

Minutes later, I go into the living room, where I spot Camilla nestled on the sofa. She puts eating and phone chatting together. A salver of boiled rice, fried fish, and baked beans, lounges on the glass-framed end table beside her. There is also a cup of tea laid on a tiny saucer. When she sees me, she quickly pulls the phone off her ear and discloses, "I have left your food inside the kitchen. You better eat it now, if you don't want your boiling tea to vaporize until there is not even a little drop of it remaining in the kettle."

I move on to the kitchen and collect my food; I then revert to the living room. Camilla keeps talking and talking until I am done with eating. Who else could be flirting with her apart from that thoughtless boyfriend of hers? Ian is so dead from his neck up—he won't let her enjoy her meal peacefully, even for ten fleeting minutes! More than twice, I keep her under surveillance and I watch her commit that grave mistake of verbalizing while she swallows food down her throat. The subsequent minute, she chokes herself and clears her throat violently.

I have just thought out to rise and visit the kitchen when she ends her hour-long call. She blows out an enervated breath and shares this with me, "Ian is so romantic, you know. Can you believe that he will get me a brand new car on my coming birthday?" She squirms enthusiastically, splitting her lips and vaunting her pair of white flawless teeth.

"You haven't told me what work Ian does?"

Camilla knits her brows. "He is a waiter at Haringtons; and a part-time student at our college. He is studying Law; and he will complete his fourth and final year in four months time."

"How will he manage to pay for that car?"

The door chimes, spurring me to rise without delay. I am still debating whether I should go and peep at the stranger who has paid us a not-bargained-for visit when Camilla halts me unexpectedly, "Stop, Alice. I will take care of it. I am waiting for Ian's gift and I am sure that it is lying in wait for me outside that door."

Once I have backtracked on my decision, I remark, "I am happy for you, girl," and I head straight toward the kitchen. I am arranging all the untidy plates into the small sink when a loud scream pierces my ears from the entryway. A scowl sits on my facial throne and my palm simultaneously whacks the tap, making the sink tremble and a plastic cup that sits on the edge to trip over and knock the floor fiercely. What is wrong with Camilla? Has she seen a zombie or a ghost? I won't know the truth unless I go and investigate.

I yell as I run out of the kitchen, "Camilla, are you okay?" Goodness, what is this? She is dancing and cuddling herself at the same time. Before her hovers an excellently-dressed midget guy who is lifting a bunch of roses and presenting her a courteous, unbroken smile. He waves at me politely and then he holds out the beautiful flowers to her.