“And how do you know?” she whispered, flushing even more.
“I found your notebook by chance.”
“By chance?” she echoed, suddenly enraged.
“In the left drawer of the desk in your bedroom,” explained Marc, ignoring the girl’s homicidal look.
“You violated my privacy!” she shouted furiously.
“I was bored to death and yesterday it was you who told me to make myself at home.”
“It was a common idiom!”
“Berry, I just took your notebook and nosed about in your files, I didn’t nose about in your underwear that is, in parenthesis , colorless. Do you wear only black underwear?”
“Did you nose about in my panties?” shouted Berenice, beside herself with rage.
“Well, we’re not there yet,” he teased her, playing upon words. “Anyway, I didn’t exactly nose about it and after realizing that I pulled open the wrong drawer, I closed it at once and looked for something elsewhere with which I kept myself amused. Excuse me if a pair of unmatched panties and bras didn’t particularly intrigue me.”
Berenice did not know whether scream or cry with shame.
One of the most handsome men had just nosed about in her ‘drawer of sadness’, as she called it. It was no fault of hers if all colorful and sexy panties and bras were manufactured for anorexic and flat-chested girls only.
“I should have killed you in that car and secretly bury your corpse, instead of trying to put it right and be nice with you!”. And I even spent all day thinking about you and buying the most beautiful and healthy things for you!
“How dramatic you are! Some women with whom I went out didn’t take it badly for much worse!”
“Only an insane girl would like to go out with you.”
“Actually 68% of women and 10% of gays would like to spend a romantic evening with me, according to the last survey.”
With such estimates how could a man like Marc Hailen be lacking of self-esteem?
“I’m proud of belonging to that 22%.”
“With those photos you have in your pc? Berry, you’re unlikely.”
“I downloaded those photos many years ago. I didn’t even remember having them,” she immediately justified herself, undeterred.
“The photo in which I wear just a cowboy’s belt dates from six months ago,” he replied, looking at her as if she were a pervert.
Someone must put an end to this discussion! If a God exists, I beg You to put an end to my suffering!
Luckily someone granted her request and the bell rang.
Thanking silently her guardian angel, Berenice hastened to open the door.
“Neil?” she cried surprised, finding in front of her the man whom, in the last two months, she still did not know whether to define as her boyfriend.
According to Sandy, three invitations at the restaurant, ten dinners at her home and seven fucks meant being a couple, but for Berenice it was not so simple. Neil was not so enthralled by her to the extent that he made her feel in symbiosis with him, drove her to set him on a pedestal of the ‘Present boyfriend’ and to feel less lonely.
“Nice! Can I come in?” asked the boy, feeling ill at ease for her not so warm welcome, since she was usually willing and loving towards him. Out of the corner of her eye Berenice watched Marc nodding his consent.
“Yes, of course. What brings you down here?!
Nice, excuse me, but aren’t we supposed to be having dinner together like every Friday?” he reminded her, goggled at the girl’s carelessness. Now they had been meeting for over a month every Friday night: dinner at her home and then short fuck in bed before he came back to his home.
“Oh, yes. You have to excuse me. It totally slipped my mind! You know, my cousin James has just arrived from Chile,” she told him, pointing at Marc who welcomed the man with a strange scowl. “So our Friday meeting slipped my mind.”
“Is that James in the photos you showed me some time ago?” reminded Neil after introducing himself to Marc who promptly played the Chilean cousin.
“Yes, he’s. It was a big surprise,” cheerfully cried Berenice, but Neil paid no attention to her.
“You’re very different from the person I saw in the photo. Did you have any plastic surgery in your face?” he inquired, lightly disgusted. Neil disapproved of anyone who attached more importance to their appearance than to their cultural aspect. Berenice always wondered whether every now and then he switched on the tv to watch a film. Once she tried to switch it on when she was with him, but for all the time he had been reading a book instead of keeping her company.
“Yes, I did,” answered Marc boldly, hiding behind a smile the contempt he felt by instinct for that man.
“Unfortunately today I had to stay a little longer at work, so I didn’t have any time yet to cook dinner, but I’ll take care of everything at once,” said Berenice hastening nervously to the freezer in order to take some of her heaven-sent deep-frozen food that she used when she wanted to make an impression on one of her guests, and above all when she was too tired to cook.
She felt freeze each neuron of hers when she realized that the freezer was empty.
Where had all her deep-frozen food got to: fried chips, lasagna, soya hamburgers, Mediterranean vegetables, ready-to-eat soups…?
“Where is the deep-frozen food?” she asked aloud addressing Marc.
“I threw it out.”
“Threw it out?” she echoed, unable to accept that.
“Yes, I did.”
“All of it?”
“Yes. It was junk food. My brother would die if he had known what you were giving me to eat,” he justified himself remembering every time Arthur had told him that eating freshly made and organic food was extremely important.
Alas, Marc was right, so she did not feel up to get angry.
“I could order three pizzas,” she suggested full of hope, but Marc’s homicidal look stopped her.
“Nice, never mind. I’ll go away. I didn’t want to disturb you. You’re obviously busy with your cousin and besides maybe seeing each other so assiduously was the wrong choice. It’s right each of us takes up each other’s space after all, isn’t it?”
Is he leaving me? In front of Marc?
“Of course, but…”
“Nice, don’t worry, ok? We might keep in touch. I’ll call you, alright?” hastened Neil, suddenly ill at ease opening the front door. “It was nice meeting you, James. Bye-bye, Nice.”
Berenice and Marc were not in time to say goodbye to him because he had already run down the stairs.
Once they were alone, Berenice began tidying up the kitchen again and then went to the dining room in order to throw out all the trash dirtying her coffee table.
“Berry, do you know that idiot isn’t calling you any longer, don’t you?”
“I do,” she sighed, exhausted and hurt.
“He’s just left you,” he got that straight, worried that Berenice might cherish further vain hopes about her relationship with Neil.
“Are you gonna twist the knife in the wound much longer?” she acidly snarled, trying to focus on the arrangement of the cushions on the sofa.
“Hey, come here,” became sweeter Marc, softly taking her by the arm and making her sit down on the crumpled sofa.
He sat down near the girl and put an arm round her shoulders, his hand hanging over her arm traced small geometric figures that had a strange calming effect.
“Neil did you a favor tonight, do you know that?”
“Really?” she sighed broken-hearted, gazing her own hands clasped on her lap.
“A man who doesn’t give his woman anything to eat instead of taking her out to dinner doesn’t deserve a smart girl like you.”
“He didn’t need to do that.”
“Yes, but, a s I understood it, you also didn’t need to be available each Friday night and I’m sure he decided the day.”
“How do you know?”
“We men tend to choose set days
of the week only when we see several women simultaneously. I’m sure Neil was not one to stay with you for all night.”
“And how do you know?”
“B y intuition.”
“Yes, but it doesn’t mean he did it for the reason you told me.”
“Can there be other reasons?”
“Maybe he doesn’t like to spoon,” or rather, he doesn’t like to cuddle little bit fat women.
“And do you like that?”
“Of course I do.”
“Well, then he should have stayed and spooned.”
“But I never asked him.”
“You should have told him. You know, we men don’t have any crystal ball. You should have told him about your needs.”
“It’s not so easy and besides it didn’t seem kind from me to tell him. He might think to be obliged and I’d have run the risk of being…”
“Of being left? As it’s just happened?”
Berenice could hardly nod.
“Is it that you’re afraid of being cuddled because of these ones?” he chuckled and with his fingers pinched a roll of fat on her side, making her spring up in shame.
“Are you out of your mind?” she was alarmed abruptly, pushing his hand away.
“So I’ve got it!” he laughed amused at Berenice’s purple cheeks. She squirmed like an eel into his arms trying to pull down and stretch the jumper to her sides.
“Didn’t you say you don’t have any crystal ball?”
“I don’t need to be clear-sighted to know that your shyness and embarrassment come from the relationship to your own body. In the bathroom you have a drawer full of diet pills, the half of the links you saved on your computer refer to websites about diet products or to web pages about how to dress to look thinner,” revealed Marc, ignoring to have just acknowledged another violation of her privacy. “Berry, it wasn’t surely those few excess pounds to make you less beautiful. It’s a pity you’re so obsessed by them.”
“The man who’s just spoken is perfect and self-confident and is photographed naked for Vogue.”
“In my world meeting some standards is important, but not in yours.”
“Perhaps you don’t know that, but my world wants to be the exact copy or yours and those who don’t succeed in it are confined among the ugly and fat people.”
“Do you think to be ugly and fat?” asked Marc softly with a worried look, but Berenice could not answer. She suddenly wanted to cry. “Berry, you’re beautiful.”
Berry, you’re beautiful.
Nobody had ever told her that before. Not even Neil. He always told her she was very pretty. Not beautiful.
Berenice let out a chuckle. “Nobody had ever told me that. ”
“Because they were envious, Berry.”
“Or because they don’t really think so.”
“I do. Sincerely,” took pains to clarify Marc, serious, making her raise her surprised eyes that got lost in his. “And I don’t mean an eclectic beauty.”
Is it so wrong to desire to kiss him right now? Actually I don’t even know him.
“Well, you should have a better selection of your panties and bras and learn how to choose better men.”
The desire to kiss him evaporated like a drop of water on the hot Saharan sand.
“I don’t know why I’m still here to hear you,” got annoyed Berenice, thinking again about the possibility to commit a murder .
“Because you know I’m right and for two years in Tabloid I’ve been nominated as best boyfriend in the world.”
“And do you expect me to believe that?”
“You could ask my exes. There’s anyone who doesn’t consider me the best boyfriend in the world.”
“Excuse me, but I hardly believe that,” she said in a cynical voice.
“Believe me, I’m a perfect gentleman from the first courtship to the moment in which I leave these women.”
Berenice burst into laughter. “Are you saying to me that you leave them and they tell around you’re the best boyfriend in the world? You’re kidding!”
“What affects their consideration for me isn’t leaving them, but how that happens.”
“What do you mean? Is there a pleasant way to leave them?”
“Yes, there is. Many men think a good sex night can adjust their aim, it just makes things worse instead. Other men act cowardly not getting in touch any longer. I arrange a dinner in one of the most famous restaurants of the town and…”
“And you dump her!”
“No, jerk. What kind of man would I be if I made a woman go down a mouthful the wrong way? No, I spare no efforts in order that the evening can be spent in the best possible way. I let the whole conversation be about her and her expectations for her future in the professional field. I motivate her and stress her unexpressed talent that needs more time to emerge.”
“In short you want her to think that the career comes first and at that moment there’s no need for her to get too involved in a love affair.”
“ Correct,” he cried amused, patting her on the nose. “Only at the end of the dinner I give her my gift.”
“A well-wishing gift for her career or better for her life without you?”
“Yes. To not show favoritism, I always give the same thing to all women: a white golden cross with diamonds in a blue velvet box with a note: ‘For the best girlfriend in the world’.”
“Now I realize why none dares to complain about you,” said Berenice, surprised. She did not have the courage of asking him how much such gift could cost to him.
“ That’s it. I finally pay the bill and call a taxi for her. I plant a kiss on her cheek and promise to support her career and her future plans all the time.”
“Wow.”
She had few boyfriends in her life, but all of them had always used the same method of leaving her: they disappeared all of a sudden, leaving her one doubt: “Where did I go wrong?”
“However, in the face of all the good I do to women, the karma rebounded upon me: I ended up in a forced cohabitation with an indifferent person who starves me to death rather than making up her mind to prepare something to eat.”
Actually it was late and almost dark outside.
“This wouldn’t have happened if someone didn’t have thrown out all my stocks.”
“I’d like to eat real food for once. I can’t go out to eat in a restaurant without being recognized. Why don’t you come back to the organic shop and buy something for tonight?”
“It’s dark outside,” noticed Berenice who did not like to walk alone in the street late into the evening.
“Are you scared?”
“No, I’m not, but this isn’t one of the safest districts of the town…”
“Come on, I’ll come with you” offered Marc.
“But you could be recognized!”
“I’ll put a hoodie on. Besides, it’s dark outside, isn’t it?”
6
Fifteen minutes before closing time, Berenice and the hooded Marc stepped into the organic market that was luckily deserted.
“Berry, look. You even figure on this label,” teased Marc, taking a raspberry jam pot from the sweet shelf.
Berenice stuck her tongue out pretending to be offended, but he began to laugh and put the pot in the market basket.
They stayed a bit longer in the vegetable department where Marc chose carefully all the vegetables, as his brother had taught him.
Then they opted for the lupin steaks on offer and some Russian salad with tofu.
When they come back home, Berenice flopped down on the sofa.
“I’m exhausted! Give me five minutes and then I’ll prepare something. I promise,” she whispered, putting her aching feet on the coffee table and closing her tired eyes.
Even though she had hunger pangs, the exhaustion for her previous sleepless night and for that hectic day got the better of her and she soon found herself dozing, her head resting on the arm of the sofa.
She did not know how long
she had been curled up on the sofa, but some pinches on her cheek made her come back to earth. She found herself ten centimeters away from Marc’s face who looked at her, amused.
“It’s really hard to wake you up,” he remarked, astonished by the girl’s deep sleep. She had been sleeping like a log in spite of all noise around her and several things he had enjoyed doing to spite her while she was sleeping.
“Let me sleep,” complained Berenice, shrugging her shoulders on the sofa and peering to dismiss Marc’s figure from her mind.
“Don’t even think about it! I’ve been cooking for about an hour and now, Miss Snore like a Trombone, you do me the honor of getting up and tasting my dishes.”
“Did you cook? Really?” she asked still sleepy, while from the kitchen she was smelling some inviting aromas that made her stomach rumble.
“Of course I did. I’m sorry I couldn’t pay the bill, but at least I made a meal,” he informed her, dragging her by the arm to the table of the dining room that was carefully laid out.
After a plain wholegrain canapés-based starter with some vegan Russian salad and some tomato, fresh fava and avocado salad, Marc waited a hot and delicious potato and leek soup at table.
“You’re a fantastic cook,” recognized Berenice, finishing the soup, and after that Marc served a lupin steak seasoned with tomato pulp, onions and black olives.
Berenice was so full up that refused the dessert for the first time.
“A spectacular dinner,” she admitted while being busy clearing the table.
“And you don’t even imagine what else I’m gonna do after dinner!” he teased, winking at her with a captivating smile that made her freak out her alarm system.
After dinner?
While Berenice got ready to load the dishwasher with the last dishes, Marc came near her and whispered in her ear: “You’ll see, you’ll enjoy it.”
“What?” she stammered, very embarrassed.
“What you’re thinking about,” he answered softly, running his forefinger down her flamed cheek.
A sex night? With you?
“I’m thinking about nothing.”
A Star in My Life Page 4
