I chuckled at the sincerity of his words. This “LOVE” stuff was so obvious to the people around me. He sounded so true, and he called her MISS Viera. That meant― He was sure she would end up being with me, here, in this room. She was going to be a family, very soon.
I looked at my cell and found one message in the inbox. My heart leapt at the sight of her name flashing on the top.
Oh no. What was wrong with her? Why was she acting all weird?
Her next massage was pretty fast.
I sighed. The brightest person that I knew intimately didn't know what ASAP meant. Wow!
I dropped my phone on the bed and took a look at the gray napkin that adored my upper pocket. A rose was already pinned on the collar. The shirt was a regular white as always. Black and white was a most common combination. It was like a zebra colour mix, they weren't stripes, just the colour.
I put them aside and jumped back on my bed. Mrs. Norrington wouldn't give me the speech before the breakfast; she had my grandmother to attend to, so I was very free at the present moment. Time for the push messages!
I unlocked my cell and went through the messages. All my friends, and Diane had wished me by now, and Oceana― well she was REALLY MAD AT ME.
I scrolled down the list and saw her message that read.
She was invincible. She was my girl.
I grinned at her message.
I read her message over and over again. She was so right. Speech on birthday did sound gross.
I was foolishly grinning at the screen when Mrs. Norrington knocked the door. I looked up and reassembled my expression. She was smiling shyly, aware in some corner of her mind that I was a total lunatic. I agreed with her on that part if she believed that.
"Thanks a lot Mrs. Norrington. You're early, its not even quarter to eight."
She nodded and sauntered towards the sofa, and picked up my clothes.
"Where to put this, sir?"
"Umm, I thought I have to wear it after the bath." So there was no need to relocate them.
She shook her head. "Plans have changed, sir. The birthday ceremony will be from seven in the evening."
Birthday what? When was I going to see her then?
"In the third wardrobe, next to the shelves of towels." I guided her.
"Sir, Mr. Sunross told me that you wanted a speech." She hung the suit inside the wardrobe.
"Yes."
"How long should it be?"
"Not more than three minutes."
"When are you going for a bath, sir?"
“Umm... after checking the text massages!" I choked. She sounded like my mom and I was missing her today, very much.
"Sure sir, I'll be keeping your dress here, on the bed."
"Sure." I focused back on the message. Mrs. Norrington and I hardly talked with each other. She was a kind but stern lady. It used to take my entire level of courage to ask if she could help me out with the purchasing of jewellery and all the girly stuffs that my girlfriends usually fancied for. She always made me nervous.
After she left, I concentrated on the task that was interrupted.
I waited for the response, and the arrival of a new message made my heart skip a beat.
Damn! I wanted to make love to her. She was so irresistible.
The hell! She wasn’t invited? Why would grandma do this?
'Enough humor at my expense.' I snickered
.
I waited for the response but she didn't reply so I started undressing myself. Why was gran against the informal wear? They were more suited for the occasions like parties. I unbuttoned my shirt and glanced at my phone. The light was beeping, indicating an unread message. Forget shirt. 'I want to read the text.'
If all the girls in the world knew the trick to make their guys desperate for them, no guy would look at another girl to be his girlfriend. Oceana knew that trick.
I called on her number.
"Hmm?" Her velvety voice melted in my ears.
"Do you have any idea how mad I am in love with you?" I smiled.
"I guess I already had a vague sense to that."
Her voice was so seductive, I could imagine us kissing and giggling and making love.
"Not now." I shook my head to get rid of the breathtaking moment.
"I am sorry?"
Oh no! I said that quite aloud.
"Umm.. I was just umm... telling Mr. Sunross that I won't be having breakfast." I bit my tongue. What a stupid lie it was.
"Very good. 'Coz you'll be having it with me." Her tone changed to a playful one. "And guess what, we'll be having the muffins I've made for your birthday."
I'd never imagined I would be loved to this extent. She took care of me like my mother. We used to have fun like best friends, fight like she was a person I'd been knowing since forever, and she did with such an authority that it never felt to me she was someone who was away from me for nineteen years.
"Orpheus. Are you there?"
"Yes... yes... Oceana― I wanted to ask you something." I gulped.
"Don't tell me you're asking me out to come to your party... With your grandma pouting at me, that'd be a nightmare."
I couldn't contain my laughter; and the next thing I knew, we were laughing, both of us. Only her voice sounded more like wind chimes tingling.
"No Oceana, I won't ask to do something that horrible. It's much― much easy."
"Orpheus, let go your breath."
I realized I'd been holding back. I exhaled. She knew me better than me.
"I want your dad's number. Can you give me that?”
"What will you do with that?" I could here her grin.
I couldn't help getting panicked. She'd said yes to my marriage proposal. I wondered if her parents would do the same.
"Pearl, I wanted to ask them if I could take you out. Just the two of us to wherever you'd like and then―" I swallowed. Why was it so hard?
“Then?”
“I wanted to ask them for an appointment.”
I heard her chuckle. Perhaps she'd sensed my nervousness.
"And why would Mr. Orpheus Albert want to meet Mr. Cepheus Viera?"
Cepheus? Well that sounds very similar to Orpheus. Cepheus… I knew I’d heard this name before. Where could this name possibly be famous?
"I've to ask him something." I distracted myself from the thought, concentrating on the present.
“And what is that?"
“I want to ask him if he's comfortable with me taking care of his daughter for the rest of her life." Whoa, I said it! Finally.
"Orpheus?"
"Oceana―" I cut her midway. "You can finish your studies after our marriage. Please. I wanna marry you, in fact I'm dying to keep you here."
“Orpheus, our marriage? I'm too young to marry you. Please”
I exhaled a quick breath. Old enough to make love but too young to marry. This was a plain bullshit.
"Are you turning me down Oceana?" My voice was cutting.
"No. I am not turning you down Orpheus. Can we discuss the marriage thing after five years? Please?"
"What?" Five years, why not now?
"Okay four. Four years?" She bargained.
"What the hell makes you think you're young?" I demanded.
"Everything Orpheus. Even the age gap. I'm a teen right now and― I need time to settle down with you. That's it."
"But you said yes." I felt defeated. What must have changed her mind in five days?
"And now I'm saying that I need time, Orpheus. Baby, please don't ruin my day and yours."
"Hmm... I'll wait if you assure me that it will be a yes in the end." I replied.
She sighed down the receiver. "I assure you that it’s a yes. You're my everything Orpheus. I just need some time establish myself. I hope you understand."
"I understand. Just don't take forever with this. You know I'm impatient." The humor pinged me just at the right time. "Or I'll marry Diane." I snickered. It didn't sound like a threat, not a bit.
"You can't do it. I own you Orpheus Albert.” She roared, completely distracted from the thought perhaps.
"That leaves you no choice then. You have to marry me."
"Okay let me turn twenty one. You can marry me on my birthday if you want." Oh the threat worked.
"Okay. I gotta hang up now."
"You're leaving?" She used her tactic of stunning me. I was breathless. Certainly I was not getting used to this any soon.
"Don't you try your trick on me, Pearl. I'm not going to let you win today."
"I too am not very determined to have you here Mr. Albert. So I better let you enjoy your day without me."
Okay. That did a little damage to me.
"Fine then, bye." I hung up. Why was she so mean to me? I told her I was busy. The rudeness wasn't really required.
After the bath, I quickly dressed myself up in a pair of jeans and a linen shirt. My speech was duly prepared in time and was placed on the table. I picked it and made my way to gran's room. She owed me some answers.
She was in her study when I reached. I knocked the door and she looked up. Our eyes met, she smiled at my sight. Thank heavens! I was neatly washed and dressed.
"Here comes the birthday boy." She beamed at me. I rolled my eyes...Boy?
"I turned thirty today, gran." I mused.
"Orpheus. You're going to remain a boy for me even when you turn fifty." Oh... stern grandma. I lowered my head.
"I just came by to check on you."
"Why?" She asked.
"Do I need a reason?" I tried to keep my voice low.
"No, you don't need one. Come here." She commanded.
I walked towards her. I was glad that she didn't notice my bare feet. Discipline was always her first priority and getting scolded on birthday wasn't a good idea. I took a chair to sit beside her. Well, my feet were visible now.
"Orpheus." She smiled. "I heard you want to expand the old age home. You're acting like a grown up." Her voice had a tone of appreciation.
I smiled back at her. "Yea, I am trying to be a good guy gran."
"You were always a good boy, Orpheus." She sighed. "Life has been bad to you."
"I don't really feel that way, gran, I think I can take care of myself." Glad that life had gifted me her. I couldn't accuse it.
"You can't take care of yourself. I know you can't. Maybe you have chosen someone else to take care of you." She looked at me with anticipating eyes.
This caught me OFFGUARD completely. I was DAZED and bewildered and practically, SPEECHLESS.
"Who's that Orpheus?" She sounded very assured of me dating the girl I knew we both had an idea of. However, both Oceana and I were not in favour of disclosing our intimate- love- relationship, not until she was twenty one. She would run away screaming if she experienced the trouble that paparazzi would create.
The other reason was that I didn't want to discuss this with gran.
"No one, gran"
"What's her name?"
"Gran!!" I smiled helplessly. I wasn't least interested in talking about my girl. There were many reasons like.
# Media.
# Diane...
# Oh yea and her control freak brother, Theo.
# My friends
# Media, (wait. I guess I've counted that before.)
I had not called off my relationship with Diane. Not that I wanted to be with her, I was just hunting for the right time and the right time was taking its own sweet time to come.
"Please?"
Why was I feeling that everybody who I knew had started to act like Pearl― stubborn and tricky?
It was my birthday today, that didn't really mean I couldn't lie. To get rid of the questionnaire, the lie wasn’t a bad idea. “Diane, gran― its her.”
"I knew it." She smiled. "You seem too happy to think of her, Orpheus. You're all red."
EMBARRASSING...!
"Um... Gran... Thank you― It’s just― you know." Shit, why can't I just shut my bloody-good- for- nothing mouth? All the blood in my face was because of Pearl, actually.
"Orpheus, I have to ask you something." She took one of my hands in hers and looked at me. "Are you gay?"
HELL! WHAT WAS THAT?
"I am straight." I bet my eyes popped out at her question. "I'm definitely dating a girl, gran. Do you think she's a man?" Or my Pearl?
Both of us flushed and burst into giggles. Thank god, she took it as a joke. I would have been executed on the town square for such a rude back answer.
"No, obviously not Orpheus. I was just wondering if you're going to get married in this life or not."
"I have plans, gran."
"Plans for?"
"Marriage." I kept my face straight.
"Okay." She let the subject for drop. Well I could finally start with my question session now. "That is definitely a good thing. I was afraid if you'll ever marry. You're father has set a bad example for you."
"Oh!" She didn't drop the subject. And I was such a fool to rearrange all the stuffs in my head to ask her.
"So what plans are you talking about exactly?"
"I'm thinking about a long vacation gran, I want to get of here for some weeks, and then I'll be going for the fronts so― I'm not thinking of marriage for two or three years." I wasn't sure of Oceana. A year in handy won't really work against me.
"That'd be just too late. I don't see a reason why you should keep her waiting any longer."
I couldn't understand her motives behind what she just said.
"What are you talking about?"
"Your father and I were thinking about something very crucial at the moment." She paused. "Now is the time that you should settle down, have some kids and enjoy being a father." She threw a smile at me, again.
I stood up, staring right into her in horror. This can't be happening.
"Grandma, it is insensible to talk about marriage―Now." Drop it please.
"Orpheus, I don't know what you're running from but there's no choice. This is what you were wishing for, right? You just confessed it." Her expressions were unreadable.
I couldn’t believe my own joke turned out to be dreadful reality to deal with.
"Please, gran. Diane― is― not― the one."
"What do you mean she's not the one? Orpheus, she's the best. You know each other since childhood, and I've seen her love for you. You are meant to be with her."
I was lifeless all of a sudden. What kind of sick joke was life intending to play with me?
"I'd rather die."
"Orpheus." She screamed, in pain or anger. I didn't know.
Before she could talk to me about it anymore, I realized I was storming out of her room. Warm tears were rolling down my cheeks. I changed into the formals that I had to wear tonight and while I was wearing my shoes, Mr. Sunross came in, and, much to my surprise, put a slip in the breast pocket of my coat that was laid on my bed.
"What's that Mr. Sunross?" I asked him.
"Sir, the slip has all the important information that wo―"
"Cut it short Mr. Sunross." I sounded like my grandma; extremely rude.
"Your tickets are booked. The flight is on October twenty first."
With everything utterly messed up and shoved up inside my ass, making me break down, this was the only right thing happening. I marvelled at the how Mr. Sunross understood my pain and did things to soothe me, that too when my own family members were strangling me to death, virtually.
"I'm sorry; I'm just― out of my mind I guess." Oceana effects― again.
“It's just fine sir." He went to my wardrobe, opened it and got me my watch and car keys. “I think Mercedes would do just fine. I want you safe, sir.”
Oh, I wanted to hug him and wail. Why was he so damn connected to me?
"Thank you, Mr. Sunross." I managed to smile.
He nodded and returned me his dazzling smile. Sometimes, I wished if I were his son. But then it occurred to me that I really wasn't that lucky to enjoy a fortune like his son's.
&
nbsp; I felt like a wild animal, being tamed for no good reason, my family had gotten me into this jeopardy altogether. My grandmother had grabbed me by the scruff of my neck. There was nothing at the moment that could save my life, that could save us― Oceana and Orpheus. My job now was to ignore every other alternative that was provided as an escape route. There was nothing new for me to feel the pain for the loved ones. I didn't have any thing to hold on to since childhood. I had no mother who would have cuddled me up at nights when I had terrible nightmares. No real friends who'd helped me to stay and walk on the right path. That was the reason why I ended up having drinking and smoking habits. A shrewd and realistic father who married again not to bring me a mother but to have a hot shot wife. When I looked back at what I did with the girls who were now my exes, I realized that I broke their hearts, argued with them for no good reason. I knew it was just a spurious argument but― acting that way lessened the pain of being ignored...neglected. And then this too good to be real and extraordinarily beautiful Oceana Viera crossed my path, helped me to work on my feelings, reconnected me to the world in her own sweet way, made me feel special by doing not giant favours to me but small and wonderful stuffs I'd never expected anyone to do, like, helping me to cook my favorite meal, talking to me about her day, fighting with me for not reminding her to bring the groceries and at the end, loving me like her life depended on my survival. How was I going to give up on her?
I parked the car in front of her apartment. It was nine thirty in the morning. Being a weekday, it was obvious for the street to be flooded with people going for work and it was somewhat possible for them to recognize me very easily. This would create problems for her since it was her apartment I was going to be at. So I wore a cap and goggles. I covered my mouth with the handkerchief and closed the door of my car. I literally took long strides to cross the road in a fear of getting run over by a car or something.
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