Читать книгу My Words Were All I Had - William Sanchez - Страница 7

Chapter 3

An Unexpected Guest in My Life

I found her, but she lost me. I found her so attractive, that she lost me on how to explain it.

Three days had gone by since we were sitting in front of the old house I had rented out with Isabel. And here we were. Mike and I had put up the Sheetrock in Old Man Rich’s computer repair store. A customer we had done business with several times. The store was closed because of our remodeling. All we had to do was paint the walls on the other half of the store and also put the carpet in. On the corner room that was soon to be available for more space, meaning more room for equipment to be sold, for a second our eyes were too busy wandering at the photos in Rich’s office. Then we just happened to come across a sketch, in which we both put our attention to.

“I’ve tried but I could never do that,” said Mike as he was flicking his fingers on the sketch. “Draw someone’s face like it’s a photo with the shades and color of just a pencil.” There was a white sheet of paper on the wall, over the computer. With Rich’s face drawn on it. Which looked very detailed. He appeared to be laughing in the sketch, as if enjoying a holiday dinner with family. Right underneath in dark letters it was signed dad, which led me to assume, and also explain to Mike. “You might not be able to draw like that. But it looks like his daughter knows what she is doing with that pencil,” I added.

“You think that was his daughter?” he questioned.

“It has to be, he never mentioned having a son.”

“You have a point there Sebastian,” he agreed with me.

There were pictures of a gorgeous tropical queen, with an art to her curves, giving her a goddess appearance. Scattered all over Rich’s office, many in which she was hugging Rich tight enough to squeeze the eyes out of his sockets. But only one in particular caught my attention, as well as my breath. I pushed some cardboard boxes out of my way with my feet as I approached. Leaned in and softly placed my fingers on the edges of the picture. Slowly I whispered under my breath to myself, “She’s beautiful.” In the picture she was sitting on a sofa with her legs crossed, elbow on the armrest, chin sitting on her hand and looking away. Wearing a forest green dress with sand-color shoes. The only picture where I didn’t see her smiling. But it was still gorgeous to me. It captured a different type of beauty, I would say. With her jet-black hair and caramel skin.

I broke my focus when I felt Mike staring at me while he stood aside me. “You need a napkin for drooling?” mumbled Mike, with sarcasm.

“You and your jokes,” I replied, annoyed.

“I like this picture. I don’t know why, but I do.”

“It’s because she’s by herself,” assumed Mike.

“No, not at all,” I assured him.

I suddenly felt Mike’s arm go around my shoulders as he pointed at the whole wall of pictures. “You should ask to meet her,” he suggested.

“What? Ask Old Man Rich to see his daughter? Nah, man. How does that look?” I argued.

“It looks like you’re just being friendly! But okay, well, anyways this weekend we are going out somewhere. Because you have to get out more,” he demanded.

I had no intentions on getting out more. But I was getting in more, on my curiosity of this woman. I started to dwell on what was going to be my approach. I’ve always known that beauty is common. There’s plenty of beautiful women out there, and there’s more to know about an individual than just that. In society everything looks more of value with a model in it. A posting of a car show, a celebrity on the red carpet with his date, even the ringside girls who hold up the signs displaying the upcoming rounds in a boxing match. The surface of a person looks appealing to the eyes. What man doesn’t love to have a beautiful woman in his arms? If she’s a ten on the outside and the low score of a three on the inside. You’ll be sleeping with a ten, but your differences will be battling with this low level of a three. So I wasn’t thinking of love at first sight. I was curious about who she was and what she was about. And wanted to start the process on getting to know her. We heard keys jingling at the front door and a squeak as the door opened.

“That’s Rich… Let’s tell him we’ll be back tomorrow,” I said to Mike as footsteps approached.

“Guys, are you there?” yelled Rich. Then he suddenly caught us coming out his office.

“Hey, Rich!” I interrupted while I stepped in his path. “All the Sheetrock is up. We also took care of the broken wood and trash left in the basement. How does tomorrow sound to do the painting?” I asked.

He looked around, impressed, and smiled. “Good! And about the floor?”

Mike then intervened: “We will also put the carpet in tomorrow. It should be all set, Rich.”

He shoved his hand into his pocket and pulled out some money to hand to me. “Here, from what I had owed you two.”

“Thank you. And hey, Rich. You are not going to be here, right?” I was confirming with him, as he took a second to clear his throat before he answered.

“Yes, about that. I was searching to find someone to be here for me. And also check up on you guys in case you two are in need of anything. Finally, my daughter told me that she could do me the favor,” explained Rich. His face was as still as a wall, eyes dead on my face before he informed me. “Her name is Valerie,” he firmly said. More than likely she meant the universe to him. Not just the world, that would be just a fragment according to his demeanor.

“No problem, Rich,” I assured him. I leaned in to shake his hand and also commented to him closely, “Family is always there when we need them.”

“Yes, especially her. Man, I can always count on that kid.” He sighed then calmly strolled into his office to go through e-mails, and shut the door. We started packing our power tools and getting ready to wrap things up, just another day of work at its end.

“Are we going to the gym today?” Asked Mike, exhausted.

“I’m not sure. I can’t wait to get out of these work boots. I’ll think about it once I’m home.”

“No way! Mr. Muscle Head says no to the gym?” mentioned Mike, surprised.

“Every now and then, it’s good to take a few days off in a row. I’m still sore from last time,” I confessed. Mike took a glance at the office door, which remained shut for the moment. He pulled me away to break down one of his dumb relationship techniques that he had suddenly put together, but I hope he’d never perform it in the real world.

“Listen closely please,” he started to detail his techniques to me. “Soon as you start dating a girl, try your best to woo her. Seduce the hell out of her, have her blindly in love with you… Right?” whispered Mike, with a sharp stare and a smile underneath it. I crossed my arms and focused my ears, awaiting for the purpose of this all. “And when you are so sure she’s in a floating cloud infatuated over you, you dump her!” he blurted.

I jumped up confused as to why he would say this. “And what the hell is that supposed to do?” I shouted.

“Think about it,” he said, with his hand lightly resting on my shoulder. “She’s going to wonder why, without a sign or a fight did, you do such a thing. She’ll beg for forgiveness of the unknown and desire you more!” he said excitedly.

I paused and took offense to the idea. “And that’s it? Hurt her and forget her?” bothered, I questioned him.

“Well no, you take her back. But she’ll see you as unpredictable and will be more likely to behave!” he assured me.

I wasn’t sure if this was one of his sarcastic jokes digging for a reaction. Or if Mike actually meant what he said. Either way, I felt I had to give my advice. “Don’t you ever do that. That’s exactly how you create a psycho out of a woman,” I warned him. But since he shared a horrible tactic assuming it may work, I took it as an opportunity to share with him a much better one. “Hey, you know I understand the feeling. Nice breasts, nice legs, looks so good right? But I don’t care how much you desire a body. Mike that body has a personality, a mind, a soul. That body belongs to a person, in this case a woman. So be the best man you can be, to the woman she is. And you never know, Mike, that woman might just surrender her body to you,” I explained. “Not that crap you just said!” I added, shouting.

As he laughed off his idea, he glanced at the office door again, and suddenly he changed the conversation. “Hey, man, you saw how Old Man Rich just looked at you serious when he mentioned his daughter?” recalled Mike. “He knows she’s hot! So he’s being all protective,” he mocked.

“Nah, man. They’re probably just really close. Can your Dominican ass ever assume something else?” I joked.

“Yeah, well, anyways, can your Puerto Rican ass buy the coffee and breakfast tomorrow?” he argued back.

Mike is this six-foot-one Dominican American, who thinks highly of himself at times and is always in a playful mood. Him being just a few inches taller than me, if it was not short jokes once in a while, it was usually something else that he felt he had over me. He’d feel I could be too serious at times, the same way I felt he could tone down his sarcasm a bit. We’d had our big differences, but we’ve been friends long enough now. I did owe us breakfast this time around too, and there was no arguing there.