Beyond the end

Hunger

Valerie felt the weight of loneliness. She had witnessed Kelly and Dylan's desperate reaction to her son's kidnapping, had tried to take the lead, but had been immediately stopped by David. And then Steve had dumped it in front of the Peach Pit.
Valerie endured little no as an answer. Always. He had tried to react. To be part of the group. She was hungry for affection more than the others.
Steve had not replied to her message. He was gone. Like David.
SHe smiled to herself. How to blame them. Valerie the queen of trouble. The unscrupulous. Yet both Steve and David knew her well. They knew what was behind her but they seemed to have lost memory of it.
In Los Angeles her power was lost. It seemed obvious to her. David, who until a few days before peeped at the Hilton looking for that warmth he no longer found in the house, almost didn't speak to her.
Steve who without any explanation did not deign her with a word, spoken or written. They had used her because she used herself and used him first.
Brandon, whom he had found after years and with whom he had basically been convising for a long time, had his head elsewhere. She didn't understand where.
Same Brenda.
She already knew about Kelly and Donna. There was no question to ask. Paradoxly they were the clearest.
No understanding of her attitude. They were strangers. She didn't feel invited to that family reunion.
She wanted to go back to her life in the Big Apple. There she had a family. Her eccentric friends. Her luxurious apartment. Just because she wasn't like the others didn't mean the wrong one was her. SHe had already informed those in charge that she would return to the Broadway gallery within a couple of weeks and had received the ok to be. She had manager to ferry the Hollywood gallery from the abyss to success, replicating the model she had already applied in New York. She knew her job, she was good without a shadow of a doubt.
Her phone rang.. BRANDON.
"Yes?"
"Hei.. nuisance?"
"No, tell me" the conspicuously distant tone.
"Come on Val, I'm calling you to fix it; at least I'll try"
"To what, sorry?"
"To everything," Brandon replied unarmed, "since we saw each other I've been too hard. And I actually know very little about your life over the last five years, we practically didn't talk. I have almost finished my job here. I'm about to leave Val"
"There are two of us, then"
"Didn't you have any other months to do?"
"My work here ended," she replied, "in every sense."
"Perfect, don't you think we deserve a dinner with old friend?"
Valerie softened, she was happy. Maybe a part of that family still wanted her.
"Okay Brandon, I'll give you this evening; I have a busy schedule, but I'll find the time for you"
"Here, good; see you tonight in the hotel lobby around 8 pm. Book where you like, I know you like to choose restaurants to eat and you're generally have good taste."
"Yeah, it's one of my skills – she smiled – okay, see you later" and closed. SHe returned to firm up in the mirror, before taking the agenda where she had noted the hottest restaurants in the city. SHe prepared herself with care. That black part of her always emerged. Seducing Brandon could have been a worthy ending.
The dinner was pleasant. Brandon had told about his work in Washington, the trip to Afghanistan, Rome among the monuments, and the report that might have given him the keys to something more important.
"And in all this work, the heart of Brandon?" She asked him.
He smiled "I don't know what to tell you I'm not lucky. As soon as I arrived in Washington I found Susan. We dated each other for a while. It seemed to work but It didn't work. It seems like things are breaking up for me in the long run. I'm starting to think I'm the problem."
"And what happened to Susan?"
"Now she lives in Taipei. With Jonathan" he took a short break "Do you remember Jonathan?".
"That Jonathan?" Val asked him.
"That, just him, seems that certain partnership never ends."
"Ah I'm sorry."
"I don't. Not at all. It's not a deep wound," he added some salad, "after I traveled. Known many women. Loved none."
"Maybe it is our destiny." Valerie said.
Valerie told him about the attempt to take root in Buffalo, the move to New York, the professional rise, her safe, successful life. They talked a lot about what success actually was and whether they really met it, as they were acclaimed in their respective work contexts, but in the end they were alone. They stayed in a hotel, they had no one to wait for them in the evening, no one to tell about the day. Alone. Inexponsibly, atrociously, alone. They continued to talk about it in a taxi as they came back to the hotel. They were going to raise their elbows, to drink, not to think.
They arrived at the elevator that was on the floor, they went out and headed to Valerie's room no. 313.
"So..." she put her hands around Brandon's neck, unequivocally bringing her lips closer to him. He unhook her grip from behind the back of his neck, rested her arms down her hips and stepped back.
"No," he told her.
"Why?"
"Because you deserve better than that."
Valerie felt an old pain come back.
"Maybe you're right; you're always right," she hurwed into his bag in search of the magnetic key.
He opened the door "So good night Brandon", "Goodnight Valerie, thanks for the evening".
Valerie smiled without a smile.
"I won't have blonde hair, but I don't think I'm that bad" a stylet who didn't want to spare herself.
Brandon laughed "Goodnight Valerie" he said raising his hand as a sign of greeting as he walked away from her.