She Is Beautiful

Ten

Ten
Call

"I'm performing tomorrow. In the Terra Cotta Park. It finishes at eleven. I'll be waiting for you until then. Gotta tell you something important." Charles finally said what he had been meaning, for a week already, to say to Alona. Without even taking the time to breathe, he couldn't believe it himself that he found the courage to invite her. He was excited, nervous at the same time. It'll be the first time Alona will watch him play the bass. It'll be the first time he will play for her.

Alona uttered an okay as Charles paid for the bill. But didn't actually considered going. Tomorrow, she can just text Charles that something came up so she couldn't go last minute.

Charles couldn't hide his small smile. Tomorrow he'll her. He'll tell her that he likes her. He'll tell her how he first did. That Friday noon in middle school. It was odd, but he could not forget it. Nobody ever had the audacity to sit with him at lunch in the cafeteria, except his punk chums. So when Alona sat beside him, then first began his noticing of her. He noticed her cute hamster cheeks. Her beautiful round face, her beautiful long hair. He noticed her patience. Waiting at the end of the line because the cashier said so. Her love towards children. Teaching the kids in the library. Her compassion. Delivering books to those unable to leave their houses. Her selflessness. Buying gelato for his brother. Her caring personality. Going against the icy wind and snow last Christmas for her brother. And most specially, the most special for him, her amiability. It moved him and he really appreciated it that Alona was friends with his Mom.

If Alona did not speak, Charles would have stared at her all night. She let him walk her home after he offered to pay for her Marocchino. She had gone to the Ruby Amore after buying Lawrence gelato only to bump into Charles again.

Side by side, there was only silence. Not until Alone broke it first.

"Mrs. Neil hasn't called me yet."

"I'll contact her. Tell her to not forget to call you."

"No, it's okay. She will call when she finds the time. I just thoughtlessly spout that because it was too quiet."

As soon as Alona reached their house, Lawrence met her with his rejoicing grin. He took the gelato from her hand and bolted like lightning to the living room. The volume of the TV and Lawrence's laughter was too deafening that Alona walked back outside again. She took out her phone, dialed her Dad's number and waited. But as it had always been before, all she heard was the monotonous tone. "The number you have dialed is not in service." She called five times, listened to the woman's soulless voice five times, then like she always did, she started snuffing out her Mom and Lawrence in her mind, like they were candles. It was because of them that her Dad walked out of their lives. They never even answered her every time she asked where their father was. They never even listened to her pleas that she live with her Dad.

Her Dad never called her porker or fatso, like Lawrence was doing. He always called her "his beautiful princess." She felt care and love through her Dad which she did not find with Lawrence and their Mom.

She would ask their Mom about it again tomorrow, but it was a guarantee that theyll only fight over it again. Her Mom raising her voice, Alona raising her voice too, Lawrence siding with their Mom and yelling at her for yelling at their Mom, Lawrence calling her a rude fatso when it was their Mom who raised them and who was with them in the present, not their Dad. And then Alona will counter that if they let her go with their Dad last Christmas, then it will be him that is with her in the present, not their Mom. Then Lawrence will drag her to his room and rebuke her. Then that ends the fight.

That was the constant program every time she tried to bring up her Dad. It was unfair.