The Pull of Destiny

by Hotcheri

  Somebody pinch me. My mouth hung open as I stared at his cute, deadly serious face.

  “Wh- what?” I managed to whisper, my voice sounding like it was coming from far away.

  “Ha! See? That worked! You’re still here! So,” he said, grinning cheerfully at me, his hands stuffed into the pocket of his jeans, “am I good or what?”

  Belatedly, I realized that Luke Astor didn’t really want to marry me, and that was just a tactic to show- what, exactly? What was he trying to prove? That I did want to hear what he had to say? Or was it just a callous way to toy with me? I decided on the former.

  Shaking my head, I looked up into his self-satisfied face. Did I really almost say yes to his fake proposal? I must be light headed with hunger.

  “I gotta go to lunch, so if you’ll excuse me-,” I said, trying to push past him whilst trying to ignore the heat rising from his body (damn hormones). It didn’t work and I couldn’t ignore it. Dammit.

  The hairs on my arms stood to attention as he grasped my upper arm to stop me and turned me towards him. I swallowed, trying to look as though I was disgusted with him touching me, when in reality the feel of his warm hand on my bare arm felt rather nice, actually.

  “Five minutes of your time,” he said softly in his husky voice. “That’s all I need.”

  He didn’t let go of my arm and I felt nervous about just yanking it away. I took a deep breath. “Look, Luke-,” I started wearily, trying to sound rational while lying that if I didn’t have my lunch, I was going to collapse with hunger so I needed him to move and let me get out of this room.

  He grinned wider and I groaned silently. A dimple? He has a dimple? That’s not fair! How the hell am I supposed to concentrate knowing that he has a dimple?

  “Yeah, CiCi?”

  “I- CiCi?” I leaned back, giving him a mystified look. “Why are you calling me CiCi?”

  He ran his free hand through his hair, shrugging. “You started it! You said ‘Luke, Luke’, so I thought it was only fair that I should think up a pet name for you too. CiCi.”

  I wrinkled my brow in thought, then closed my eyes and shook my head as understanding dawned. Looking back up at him I told him “I didn’t say ‘Luke, Luke’. I said look, Luke. L-o-o-k. As in, look over there, it’s-.”

  Luke chuckled. “Okay, I get it. Anyway. I just wanted to say sorry for yesterday. I’ve been looking for you around the whole school. I didn’t even have any lunch,” he said. Oh, right, blame that on me.

  “Then by all means, go and eat. I, on the other hand, must go.”

  Once again I tried to circumvent him and get to the door; once again he stopped me, this time with a hand on my shoulder.

  Looking down at his hand I said, “Can you stop touching me, please,” as coolly as I could.

  He flushed, immediately removing his hands and putting them behind his back. “Sorry. But-don’t you want to hear me out?”

  Remember what Shazia said became my mantra. I wanted to hear him out and accept his apology, but then Shazia would be furious and say I should have made him work for it. Well, I didn’t want to be evil, but I knew I should make him work for it. I wasn’t weak. I didn’t deserve all the crap I got.

  “Not in particular,” I said breezily. “Now, come on. Move. Step aside. I want to get out of here.”

  He stared at me in perplexed amusement. “I’m trying to apologize here, though,” he said, starting to sound slightly petulant. I could picture him stamping his foot and pouting. How adorable.

  “Save it for someone who cares,” I said brusquely.

  “Well, what can I do to show you how sorry I am?” he asked persistently. I stood there, one finger on my cheek, my head cocked to one side like I was thinking really hard.

  “Oh, I got it. Why don’t you return every single pencil I ever lent you, and I’ll think about it,” I said finally.

  I wasn’t expecting him to smile and reach into his jeans pocket. I took a step back as paranoia kicked in. Maybe he was pulling out a gun! Or something...

  With a flourish, he held up my blue polar bear pencil, looking as good as new.

  “That’s my-,” I started, staring at it but making no move to touch it.

  “Yeah. Your lucky pencil,” Luke said softly, smiling as he handed it to me.

  I took it, feeling like I was dreaming. My pencil! You guys probably think I’m stupid, going gaga over a little pencil, but it held sentimental value to me. My three year old niece (Nate’s baby girl) had won it at the West Indian Carnival last year and she had given it to me as a ‘pwesent’. Two days later, she was dead. She suffocated in her sleep and I was the one who found her.

  Unwanted tears filled my eyes as I looked up at Luke, who frowned at me slightly.

  “I thought you said you lost it,” was all I could think of to say.

  “I looked all over my room till I found it. How about that? Did I rock your socks or what?” he asked. “Looks like I did- are you crying?”

  “No,” I said stoically, blinking back tears. “I really have to go. Thanks for bringing the pencil back to me.”

  Luke scratched his head. “So...apology accepted?” he asked, looking confused as he stepped away from the door. Finally.

  I opened it before he could try anything else. “Nope,” I said, my body half out of the room. “But keep trying.”

  And, like magic, I was gone.

  CHAPTER 5

  reality biites.

  Celsi’s Point of View

  For two hours a day, twice a week, I volunteer at Mount Sinai Medical Centre’s daycare. Are you wondering why any sane person would even want to work with a babble of rowdy kids if they had the choice? So does Robyn, and I tell her the exact same thing I’m gonna tell you- I need to fill in my quota of community service hours before I graduate and I actually like working with kids. Sure, they get loud, hyper and they never listen to reason, but I happen to think they’re hilarious. My supervisor, Miss Campbell, well-she’s another story. I don’t even think she likes kids. If she does, she hides it well. After working full time at the daycare for 6 years, you’d think she would be immune to the constant ‘I don’t want a pink juice box, I want an orange one’, ‘that’s mine!’ and ‘I want my mommy’ cries.

  Yeah freaking right.

  She was the most frazzled person I had ever had the misfortune to run into, constantly pulling at her straw blonde hair, massaging her reddened temples and sometimes even screaming back at the kids. I often thought the hospital would fire her, and stamped on her termination papers would be the words ‘does not work well under pressure.’

  But so far, she’d been lucky in that respect, even though she was on her third stress ball this year at least she had me coming in to help her out every few days, alleviating some of her stress.

  “Put that down, Helen! William, don’t touch that- stop poking me, Jerome!”

  Or not.

  I looked up from the quiet corner I was sitting in, surrounded by a small group of enthralled children who listened avidly as I regaled them with the story of Harry Potter. Miss Campbell was also surrounded, but the kids who were clamoring for her attention weren’t as well behaved as mine were.

  “One at a time! William, get away from that table, those snacks are for later!”

  I groaned to myself as her voice cracked. Sure sign of an impending meltdown, which meant that I had to step in and do something, and fast.

  “Stop yelling at me! Use your inside voices! One at a- William! Get away from there!”

  There were three difficult children at the daycare (for some strange reason, every class has a bunch of troublemakers. Imagine how boring the world would be if they didn’t). Helen, whose mother was a nurse at the hospital; Jerome, whose father was on dialysis; and William, whose brother was terminally ill.

  William was the ringleader. He knew exactly how and when to push Miss Campbell’s buttons and she hated dealing with him. Because all she did was yell at him to stop and there isn’t a kid in the w
orld that’ll stop doing something just because you tell him/her to.

  Closing my book, I got to my feet and the magical spell that Harry Potter wove around the kids was broken. They groaned, looking up at me with upset expressions on their little faces.

  “Please, one more page,” Zandi begged, her brown eyes pleading with me.

  “Another page? You guys need to go play!” I said in a mock severe voice, my hands on my hips. They all pouted at me, making me feel like a meanie, but I had to save the bigger kids before Miss Campbell caused them lasting damage. “Tell you what. We’ll continue the story next time, how about that? And look!” I pointed across the room, to where Miss Campbell's long suffering assistant, Vanessa Ruiz, was laying out toys for ‘playtime’. “Vanessa has some new toys for you guys!”

  Proving that all children have one track minds, they all got to their feet and ran off to bombard Vanessa, leaving me free to go and save William from Miss Campbell's wild eyed stare. Jerome and Helen, lured by the toys, had left their ring leader to carry on alone, and that’s exactly what he intended to do.

  William was whining, knowing from past experience that this was the surest way to piss Miss Campbell off and judging by the grimace on her face, it was working. The smug smile on William’s cherubic face- not helping matters. At all.

  I walked up to them, scratching my nose nervously. Miss Campbell was cool when she was normal (not often). When she was angry- you didn’t want to be there. “Is everything okay?”

  She turned to me, at the same time blindly swatting at William’s hand as the little boy tugged on her skirt. “No, everything is not okay!” she exclaimed, her nostrils flaring sharply. Turning on William, she barked “Stop pulling my skirt!”

  Somebody’s a little high strung.

  “But I need to use the bathroom!” Surreptitiously, William turned his head slightly to wink at me. I shook my head, fighting back a laugh. The kid is a mastermind.

  “You don’t need- he went to the bathroom just five minutes ago!” Holding her head between her hands and looking like she wanted to keel over, Miss Campbell looked beseechingly at me. “I can’t do this anymore! I can’t deal with this child.”

  Lord save me from overly dramatic daycare supervisors.

  “Miss Campbell, it’s alright, just calm down,” I said soothingly, patting her arm. Calming down a woman undoubtedly in the throes of a midlife crisis wasn’t what I had signed up for. “William’s just restless, aren’t you?” The smug smile still on his pink cheeked face, William nodded and I turned back to Miss Campbell, who was squeezing the life out of her poor stress ball. “I can take him for a walk, how’s that sound?”

  “Please,” Miss Campbell said in a weak whisper as William gave an exuberant, “Yay!”

  He looked up at me, slipping his hand into mine. “Can we get candy?” he asked, his blue eyes hopeful.

  Miss Campbell massaged her temples again. I was sure I knew what the answer to that would be. “Definitely not.” William’s face fell as she continued. “Just- take him up and down the hallway. Make sure he doesn’t push any buttons and if you bounce that ball, young man-.”

  Her voice tapered off as she gave William a threatening look.

  “Okay,” I said hastily, seeing William open his mouth to make a stinging retort. “Let’s go, kid.”

  As we walked out of the daycare and into the relative quiet of the hallway, which housed the reserved outpatient’s rooms, I heard Miss Campbell exclaim, “That boy will be the death of me.”

  Somehow, I don’t doubt that.

  “I hate that old biddy,” William muttered, squeezing his bouncy ball angrily.

  I bit back a laugh. I was supposed to be a role model for the kid! Even though ‘old biddy’ is an astute description of Miss Campbell. But what kind of role model would I be if I agreed with him?

  I settled for saying “William!” in a slightly admonishing tone.

  The tips of his ears turning scarlet, William looked up at me, an embarrassed look on his face. But his voice, when he spoke, was defiant. “Well, she hates me! She’s always yelling at me!”

  “That’s coz you are always causing trouble,” I pointed out as we slowly walked down the hall. I resisted the impulse to peek in the open doors and take a look at the people who had the nerve to reserve thousand dollar rooms for a one day stay. I heard they were served coffee and sandwiches in those rooms. How extravagant.

  William puffed out his chest and looked up at me, his dark hair falling into his face and reminding me of Luke. I blinked and he turned into William again. Weird. “It’s not my fault I like talking,” he defended himself. “And it’s not her fault she hates kids.”

  So I’m not the only one who’s noticed!

  “Well, you need to back off on her, she’s this close to having a nervous breakdown,” I told him, patting him on the head. “And she could kick you out, then what would you do?”

  “My dad would kill me,” he admitted.

  Almost 6 years old, William would be starting elementary school in September, but his parents had spent so much on his older brother that they didn’t have enough for his pre-school fees. If he got kicked out of the daycare, one of his parents would have to look after him constantly, and they already had their hands full with Kevin.

  “Exactly. So what are you going to do?” I asked.

  He smiled up at me. “Stop causing trouble,” he said reluctantly. I nodded, pleased.

  “And I’ll get you candy,” I said spontaneously, even though I had less than 5 bucks in my pocket. Oh well. I would be getting my pay check soon, and the grateful look on William’s face- that was priceless.

  Squeezing my hand, he said “Yay! Thanks, Celsi!”

  “Sugar free, though,” I amended hurriedly. We didn’t want a hyper William running around the hospital.

  His face fell, but just slightly. “Aw,” he said.

  “If I get you normal candy, Miss Campbell will kill me.”

  “Okay.” He looked up at me. “I wish you ran the daycare.” A shy smile. “It’s more fun with you there.”

  I smiled back at him, the words warming my heart. “Give me a couple of years, I’ll be working here full time,” I told him, half truthfully.

  Because what else could I do? University was out of the question, unless I was lucky enough to get a scholarship, and even then, I would have to sacrifice my dream of studying music. Ghetto girls didn’t go to Julliard. I had been lucky enough to get in to Dalton, but even though Aunt Kelly was optimistic about my chances of getting a scholarship, I knew I probably wouldn’t be heading to university. I couldn’t put all that on Aunt Kelly’s head. It would be so selfish, especially since she’d supported me through way too much already.

  Maybe I could take over from Miss Campbell when someone checked her in to the psych ward. At this rate, it wouldn’t be long.

  “At least you don’t scream at us. She acts like we want to be there,” William said. He scowled, bouncing the ball on the tiled floor. “If Kevin wasn’t sick, my parents wouldn’t be here all the time. She could try being nice.”

  I sighed, squeezing William's hand comfortingly. “She’s just stressed out,” I told him. “How’s Kevin doing?”

  “He was super happy with the Sponge Bob DVD you gave him! He was so happy; he gave me this bouncy ball.” He held it out to show me. “He never used to let me touch it before, it was his favorite thing. But now- he can’t play with it.”

  His face saddened and I bit my lip, wishing I hadn’t asked. Kevin had acute leukemia and was terminal. I used to babysit the brothers, which was why William was so comfortable with me. Kevin didn’t have long to live and knowing that William knew this, in a way; it just made me want to cry.

  To cheer him (and me) up, I bought him two candy bars at the vending machine and his face brightened as he dug in.

  “You can’t even tell they don’t have sugar!” he exclaimed excitedly, insisting that I have a bite.

  “As long as it does
n’t make you hyper, I’m cool with it,” I said, making a mental note to make sure his face was wiped clean (thank God for Wet Wipes) and the candy wrappers disposed of before we got back to the daycare.

  As we walked back, William took out the ball, which he’d put in his pocket for safekeeping. “Hey, you wanna see how high I can bounce it?” he asked me.

  I shook my head immediately. “Nuh-uh. Remember what Miss Campbell said? Don’t bounce the ball in the-.”

  Too late.

  William threw the ball onto the floor with such force that it bounced up to the ceiling, just missed hitting a hall light, and skewed off into a room with an open door.

  “Crap,” we said in unison as we raced to the room and hovered nervously outside the door, unsure of what to do.

  “It went under the bed, I saw it,” William claimed, hopping from one foot to another excitedly.

  “Will, I told you not to!” I whispered exasperatedly.

  “I’m sorry,” William whispered back. “Can you please get it back?” His eyes filled with tears and my heart melted. “I don’t want to lose it. Kevin gave it me!”

  He sniffled, wiping his eyes on his t-shirt sleeve. I knelt down till I was at his level.

  “I’ll get it back, William, don’t cry. Go back to the daycare and tell Miss Campbell I’m- in the washroom.” It was highly irresponsible, but it was the only way I was gonna get the stupid ball back. Having William around while I extracted it would just distract me. William nodded, wide eyed. “And for goodness sakes, don’t get sidetracked. By anything!”

  “Okay,” William said, nodding violently. He took off at a run as I let go of him.

  “Don’t run!” I whispered loudly and he slowed to a walk, looking over his shoulder at me.

  Nervously, I peeked into the room. It looked empty, the bed was made and there were no bags, tea trays or half eaten sandwiches littering the place. I hoped it was empty as I tiptoed in, my eyes darting in different directions as I inched towards the bed. The bathroom door was firmly shut and I kept my ears cocked for any approaching footsteps. Getting down on my knees, I peered under the bed. The ball was lying innocently on the far side and, cursing William, I got onto my stomach and wriggled under the bed. Thank God for dust free floors.