Lady Friend

Twenty Two - Facing the Music

Angie sighed. She had taken a job which was in Europe and she hadn't even told Violetta yet. Normally she would have been on the phone as soon as she had found out. Maybe she didn't want to scare her. Or herself. There was no doubt that when she did find out she would try to talk her into staying. She knew that would happen. She just had to try and soften the blow. How, though? 

Here's your favourite meal Violetta, homecooked especially from Argentina! Where I won't be God knows how soon. 

She had taken it without even asking how soon they wanted her there. How stupid was that? She hadn't even asked if she had to pay for her flight! Not that that was important, but it would be useful information. She clicked the button to end the phone call even though it had already finished and placed the phone onto its receiver. It made a short little noise and she stared blankly at the coffee machine. She didn't know why she chose the coffee machine, but it was something to look, well stare, at. It was like saying, I'm going to focus on this spot and not move my gaze. I just need to pick one object. This coffee machine was the unfortunate culprit. 

She could feel something hot close to her. Using her sixth sense, where in reality, she only used her peripheral vision, she discovered that a steaming cup of coffee was waiting to be passed into her hands. Angie took it. She almost forgot to thank Pablo, but thankfully she remembered. He smiled gratefully. He hoped that she was alright. She didn't have to say anything for him to know that she was deep in her world of thought. Sometimes it took days for her to walk through the tunnel again. Luckily it only took days when something bad happened. That shouldn't be described with the word 'luckily', but at the same time, it should because bad things of that scale didn't really happen to Angie that often. Pablo hoped that it would always stay that way. He didn't want to see his best friend get hurt, or worst yet, see her heart broken. He wanted to ask her what she was thinking about but he decided to leave her. The door gently swung and closed behind him. 

Angie pursed her lips and blew on her mug of coffee. It really was hot. She sipped it sparingly while wondering what do with herself and the situation. Being a woman of action, she couldn't sit around for long, so she decided to reach over and grab a sheet of paper. Carefully, not to give herself a papercut, she folded it into four sections. She grabbed the nearest pen and wrote four things, going across by priority, in the quadrants. When she was done, she took a deep breath and read them all in her head.

In the first quadrant, Violetta's name stood independent and proud. So it should be. Her niece was and always will be the most important thing in her life. Right now she was also the one she was most worried about so her being in the first section of the four folds was kind of a double meaning. 

Second, was the word 'France'. This too, on her first thought, was also a double meaning. France, being the country. First thought. France, being where the job was located. Second thought. When she really thought about it, it was where she would have to dedicate herself to live. It was where she would be running away to. She would leave all of the good she had done in the last year and seven months to take a job on a whim. A job that she didn't even really know if she wanted. That scared her. 

Third was the name of her brother in law, German. Also the name of Violetta's dad and the man she had fallen in love with a year and a few months ago. She never thought she would fall in love with him. When her mother found out about her feelings, she wasn't too pleased. Thankfully she wasn't in the picture too often. Their first kiss was one of her favourite memories. Both of him and out of all of the memories that she had. She wondered if it was one of his too. Best not to think about him, she concluded, time to turn her attention to the final phrase on the page.

Finally, on the fourth, there was only the name 'Esmeralda'. She was German's girlfriend. The one who he seemed to be happy with and was probably very close to marrying. Just like Jade, she scoffed. Had he even told her he loved her? Was he even capable of love? She dismissed that question because she knew that he was. When he looked at her all that time ago, the way he held her, the way he kissed her, he made her believe that he was madly in love with her, just like she was with him. She didn't know. Maybe he had deceived her. He had deceived her father. That was different. That was then. Not now. 

She turned over the page and smoothed out the creases. She picked up the pen and wrote 'PARIS' in big, block capitals. 

It was where she had to go, but honestly, she didn't want to leave her home.