Bingo!
“Reading an interview doesn’t mean really knowing someone.”
“But you really know me. My sister-in-law always says to me that only those who really know me realize I’m an insufferable arrogant guy.”
“I totally agree.”
“And I’m sure you and she would get along well.”
“Maybe one day you’ll introduce me to her,” suggested Berenice, although she knew how absurd was her request.
“I was thinking the same thing.”
Luckily the cries and moans stopped.
“At last! I couldn’t take any more of this,” he relaxed, being happy about the silence that had fallen from the other side of the house.
“Well. We can really sleep,” quietly echoed Berenice, wondering whether she could have slept with Marc in her bed.
“Good night,” he softly whispered, blowing lightly on her cheek before placing his lips on her smooth ones.
“Good night,” nervously moved away Berenice, trying to control the beat of her heart that was about to be heard even outside the condominium. However he hugged her more tightly and placed again his mouth on hers less gently than before, keeping her from protesting and moving away from him.
“Marc, stop it! I’ve already told you. I don’t want it.”
“Why not?” got angry Marc, taking possession of those lips that had intrigued him since he first had laid eyes on them.
“You don’t like me,” she could say.
“ Rubbish!” he hastily answered back, continuing to torment her.
“I don’t know you,” she gasped, trying to breathe before to be assaulted again by him.
“ Rubbish!”
“I don’t wanna run the risk of growing fond of you,” she admitted, frightened.
“Why?”
“Because you’ll soon go away and I won’t get hurt.”
“And aren’t you worried you’re regretting not bringing yourself to get involved at least once in your life and to do something you desire?”
“I don’t allow myself to have such feelings.”
“You should.”
“But not with you.”
“Why not?”
“Marc, have you looked at you? Have you looked at me? You’re handsome, famous, rich and desired by thousands of women. You’re so inaccessible for those people like me that I’m still wondering whether I’ve been dreaming since the day I found you in my car. On the contrary, I’m just a very common person who just lives a very common life, who just has a very common job and a beauty that is nothing special.
“You’re beautiful instead,” rectified Marc in a serious voice.
“So beautiful to be called by a fashion designer to walk down the catwalk with one of his creations?” challenged Berenice who already knew the answer.
“You’re too short and chubby for a fashion designer, but you’re beautiful to me. Only to me, do you get it?”
“Do you really want me to get hurt?” murmured Berenice, full of despair at the thought of being told such things from the only man who at that moment meant a lot to her and yet would have soon left her alone. Just then she wished that swollen nose will never heal.
Marc was not sure how to answer that . Berenice was the only woman having the power to make him feel bad and strike him dumb . So he hugged her more tightly and, without saying a word, started to stroke her gently and place light kisses on her head resting on his chest, until both of them fell asleep into each other’s arms.
9
The following morning, Marc and Berenice had been lying on the bed for a long time, cuddling up against each other, pretending to sleep just to go on benefitting from each other’s warmth.
They heard the doors slam when Melanie went away and some other door slamming, two hours later, when also Roy went out.
“Do you know that you snore like a warthog while sleeping?” whispered Marc, sleepy, feeling Berenice’s body slipping away from him.
“Have you ever heard a warthog snore to say that?” she challenged, trying to get up.
“No, I haven’t actually.”
“Then shut up and go on sleeping.”
“But where are you going?” he asked, stretching as much as he could to take possession of all the warmth that their bodies had left that night.
“To the bathroom.”
“Are you coming back, aren’t you?” complained Marc suddenly, stretching out lazily. He had no wish to get up.
Berenice was about to answer him when she heard the front door open again.
“Who’s it?” asked Marc, surprised by that umpteenth intrusion.
“It’ll be Roy. Maybe he has forgotten something,” supposed Berenice, but as soon as she slightly opened the door of her bedroom, she saw her father’s figure wander restlessly around the sitting room like a caged animal, while he was turning all the cushions of the sofa as if to search for something… and her daughter knew what it was.
“You’re house is worse than a railway station,” complained Marc, but the girl motioned him to shut it.
“Stay here and don’t let yourself be seen or heard . Did you get it? Don’t go out of this room on no account, Marc,” she ordered seriously, but her grim look immediately alarmed Marc who jumped off the bed and rushed to slip into his trousers.
“No, Marc. Halt! Don’t let yourself be heard, ok?” she stopped him.
“Berry, you’re making me worry. Who’s in there?”
“It’s my father. It’s alright.”
“Isn’t he one of those fathers treating violently the men who sleep with their daughter?”
“No, he has another problem, but I’ll handle it, alright? Don’t interfere,” warned Berenice with a drawn face, going out the bedroom.
When she got to him, her father had already found what he was looking for: his daughter’s billfold.
“Pa.”
“Nice, I need your help,” he snapped, taking the little cash that her billfold contained out of it and throwing haphazardly her cards and credit cards on the floor.
“Pa, I’ve already told you that I’m not gonna help you any longer,” she tried hard to tell him.
“Nice, you’ve to help me. I’m in trouble,” got more furious the man, taking it out on his daughter.
“The last time you stole me my whole salary to pay off your debts. I had warned you that if you had bet again, you’d have received no more money from me,” reminded Berenice.
“You’re my daughter and you must help me. You owe me,” he railed at her still further, pushing her against the kitchen counter.
“No, pa. I owe you nothing!” she cried in return, wondering how she could have been dragged into that mess. At first she had gone along with him paying off every little debt of his, since his wife did not allow him any longer to sign on the account because of his inability to manage money. However he was deeper and deeper in debt afterwards and when she told him to have treatment for that kind of addiction, he had beaten her and stolen her whole salary. He had never apologized to her, but after that episode he did not have come back to disturb her. Not until that day, and from her father’s instable state she deduced that the debt had to be quite high and the usurers quite menacing.
“Pa, go away,” she ordered, full of despair for seeing him like that, but he ran like a shot to her bedroom, in spite of Berenice’s protests.
When she went in the bedroom in her turn, she realized to her relief that there was no sign of Marc.
Perhaps he was hiding in the closet.
In the meantime her father was heading for the jewel case on the bureau where she kept those few valuable jewels she had and he stole earrings and necklaces .
“No, pa. This is mine,” she stopped him, trying to take off a small sapphire pendent from his hand. Her grandmother had given it to her for her eighteenth birthday shortly before dying. “Stop it or I’ll call mom.”
Unfortunately her father’s strength was bigger than hers and he soon managed to
take every object in the small jewel case from her.
She looked at Marc out of the corner of her eye. He was stepping forward, but she motioned him to stop and go back in the closet.
“Pa, calm down and let’s try to find a solution, ok?”
“Where is that white gold parure we gave you three years ago?” remembered her father, so unhappy with the pittance he had found up to then.
In fact Berenice kept the parure her parents had given her among the clothes in the closet, since it was too precious and big for her jewel case.
“I don’t have it anymore,” she lied.
“Liar! Tell me where it is!” got furious her father.
“I don’t have it anymore. I told you,” repeated the daughter.
“Where is it?” he cried in return, but Berenice shook firmly her head and the man panicked.
Frustrated and furious, he hit her in the face so hard that she bumped into the desk.
The man was about to hit her again when he felt to be grabbed from behind and be knocked down.
He turned just in time to catch a glimpse of a guy whom he had never seen before throwing himself at him and dealing a right-handed blow to his jaw, that was enough powerful to knock him senseless. But Marc did not allow him to collapse.
He brought him round shaking him by the lapels of his jacket and pulled him up.
Once Marc got him up, he shoved him away, towards the front door.
“Try to touch Berry once again and I’ll kill you, did you get it, asshole?” hissed Marc through clenched teeth, giving him a menacing look that made the man’s flesh creep.
Berenice’s father nodded.
“Well, now give everything back to her,” Marc ordered, but the man refused to obey. “I won’t tell you another time…” he snarled, punching him on the stomach.
Berenice’s father did not even have the strength to react. With trembling hands and breathless, he emptied his pockets of all possessions.
“The latchkey too. I forbid you to enter here again, do I make myself clear?” went on Marc threatening him with another punch.
Once he gave everything back, Marc forbade him again to come back to his daughter’s house. Then Marc squeezed him out so hardly that the man fell on the landing.
When the boy closed the front door, he found Berenice a few feet away gazing at him, both frightened and grateful for what he had just done.
She did not like to see her father hit by Marc, but she was sure that now he would have respected her more.
“You’ve a selfish shrew as a mother and an asshole as a father. How could you become the wonderful person you’re today with a family like that behind you?” he asked while catching up with her.
He saw her reddened cheek for the slap and cursed himself for not hitting that man more hardly.
“Thank you,” whispered Berenice, hugging him. It was the first time she let herself go with him and Marc was pleasantly surprised by that.
They both tidied up the part of the house through which the girl’s father had been rummaging in search of money.
“What is it?” asked Marc after a while, taking a packet of papers from Berenice’s desk.
“My worst nightmare.”
“Is it worse than your father?”
“Yes, it’ll be if I don’t get to the bottom of it, since that’s my sheet-anchor to avoid being laid off and consequently moving back in with my folks.”
“With your father and your mother? Are you out of your mind?”
“I know, but if I don’t work I can’t earn my living. I don’t pay any rent, but I’ve to pay the bills and I’ve food expenses.”
“Don’t you have anything saved up until you find another job?”
“My savings were all gone some months ago to help my father who had got up to his neck in debts.”
“It’s generally the parents who help the child, not the other way around.”
“I know, but my mother pretends not to see anything and avoids that kind of discussions, whereas my father… he’s my father.”
“A violent father,” clarified Marc, still angry.
“He wasn’t like that before. He has been a good father up to three years ago.”
“I don’t care. Now he’s just an asshole who takes it out on his daughter, instead of solving his problems by himself.”
“Listen, never mind, ok? Do you have rather any ideas about how to improve a declining publishing house’s fortunes with a three-year financial plan?” tried to change the subject Berenice, who felt sad for her father’s miserable condition because of his gambling.
“Why?”
“That’s what my boss asked me to do by tomorrow to avoid being laid off.”
“Tomorrow? And are you dealing with this today?”
“Actually I don’t even know where to start. I told my boss I’d have done that only to not be laid off. The truth is that I’ve no idea of what a financial plan is.”
“Lucky for you, I took a degree in corporate law and I also attended some business classes, so I know exactly what your boss means by financial plan.”
“Do you really? You amaze me every time,” she was surprised.
“You amaze me every time too… but for the worse. You’re a walking disaster, Berry.”
“Thank you,” she hissed tartly.
“Now, make something to eat and I’ll handle this,” immediately got organized Marc, taking the laptop to start drafting the report and the flowcharts.
Seeing her stand there gawking while he was leafing through the papers and making a note of the first ideas in an Excel file on pc, Marc could not restrain his annoyance: “Berry, what else is there? Can you at least cook anything in the meantime or do I have to do everything myself around here? I don’t get it. I’m a guest here, an injured and swollen one to boot, and yet in this house I’m a dogsbody: I do shopping, cook, clean and make the bed. And now I’m even doing the job for you! You’ll have to pay me for all that I’m doing. Tomorrow you’ll have to raise a monument to me after I’ve saved your job.”
“ How exaggerated!” snorted the girl awkwardly, making for the kitchen to make some coffee. Without that drink it was difficult to get through the day that had already started in the worst possible way.
Marc spent all day carrying out a satisfactory report, whereas Berenice spent all day cleaning the house, making some snacks for both of them and listening to the boy’s explanations about what he had written and shown in the flowcharts.
At dinner time, Marc switched off the laptop and went to the table, attracted by the inviting smell of food coming from the kitchen.
“The report is ready,” he informed triumphantly.
“I don’t really know how to thank you. After dinner I’m sending it to Mr. Footer. Now be prepared to taste the best spaghetti with tomato sauce in the world,” she happily exclaimed, serving two dishes full of pasta.
“Why are the spaghetti all stuck together?” asked Marc suspiciously, having a fork full of entangled and sticky spaghetti in his hand that he could not separate.
“It’s nothing. They’re good anyway,” justified herself Berenice who did not want to admit she was not good at making pasta as that one she had once tasted in an Italian restaurant.
“But they’re uncooked inside,” complained Marc while eating them.
“Still , I’ve boiled them more than necessary to be sure.”
“That’s why they’re overcooked outside.”
“Ooh!...”
“Berry, you’re a bad cook,” pontificated Marc, putting the pasta aside and serving some mixed salad to himself. “Did you put salt in?”
“I totally forgot about that. You know, I was so focused on pasta that I wasn’t paying attention.”
“ That figures…” he tauntingly snorted .
The dinner was ended with some excessively gummy soya croquettes and a dessert with fruit in syrup.
“I devote myself to writing a detailed and accurate report and you thank me wit
h this terrible dinner?” snapped Marc while clearing the table.
“Cooking is not one of my best qualities.”
“Berry, enlighten me: what are your qualities?”
“What?”
“I’d like to know what you’re good at. I could only notice your faults so far and be surprised by your incompetence every time and… you weren’t yet able to surprise me positively. What are you waiting for?”
“Well, if you don’t stop offending me, I could surprise you with my skill of killing you.”
“You? You’re so awkward! I don’t think you’ll succeed in doing this. You’re not even good at driving a car, making few spaghetti, choosing the suitable dresses, regarding yourself highly, making a valid contribution to the company for which you work, going shopping even if you’ve a detailed list of what to buy, sleeping without disturbing the person next to you with animal cries, keeping a room in order, being respected by your family, buying food…”
“Have you finished?”
“Actually I’m just getting started.”
“Stop it, you’re a walking disaster too.”
“Really?”
“Yes, you’re.”
“Give me some examples of it, come on.”
“For example…” tried Berenice, but at that moment nothing sprang to her mind. Apart from Marc’s terrible temper, he had demonstrated to be able to do anything and even to do it very well.
“I’m waiting,” urged Marc, out of patience.
“A lifetime wouldn’t be enough to list all your faults.”
“It’s a pity that you don’t even know what to list.”
Why did he always have to be the one getting the last word?
10
The following morning Berenice had a sweet awakening, a very different awakening from the ‘ machine-gun alarm’ of her vintage alarm clock.
“Good morning, Princess Berry,” exclaimed Marc cheerfully, planting a kiss on her lips, which made her blush as a child.
“Good morning.”
“Today is the big day, so I’ve made a special breakfast for you,” he said, placing a heavy tray on the bed and leaving Berenice speechless. She was not accustomed to be overwhelmed with so much kindness.
A Star in My Life Page 8
