Enigma (11 page)

CHAPTER 5

The next two weeks flew by as I spent every waking moment I could with Avan. It made it so easy not having anyone to answer to or trying to get me to do something else instead. It gave us time to talk about the more serious issues of my life as I explained to Avan what had happened to my parents unexpectedly.

He was sympathetic and let me talk about how I really felt about the situation without trying to speculate why I felt that way. I explained how the circumstances of their death made no sense to me and how I could never have seen my dad committing that kind of a crime, as he had loved my mother more than anything.

Avan just looked into my eyes as the words and emotions poured from deep within my soul. It had been so long since I had mentioned my parents’ death it felt like a release of pressure had built up to the point it was painful. Once I got it out, it was as though the weight of the world lifted from my shoulders.

Even though Avan was the greatest listener I had ever met, for some strange reason he never elaborated on why he was not happy about my living situation. I explained it was a million times better than living with Sharon Mumford, my legal guardian. When I mentioned her name, Avan got an intense look on his face and asked me to tell him more about Sharon. I had launched into an explanation of that whole situation, letting him in on the fact that Damien Montgomery had agreed to pay her a monthly salary to convince her to allow me to stay at his and Lena’s house instead.

He was almost steaming to hear that the local police had not done more research on Sharon and her relationship with my parents before turning me over to her. Though he knew my only other choice was living at the Montgomery home, he was still against the idea. Since Lena had left town I had received several calls and text messages from Ian Bentley, trying to convince me to go out with him again. I did not want to, and more importantly, I was more interested in Avan. At first, I used excuses of being busy with school, blaming my teachers for assigning too much homework. Then I used the excuse of having a huge research paper due, but soon I started running out of excuses.

When Ian kept calling and texting, I just started ignoring them. He kept trying to convince me getting together again would be a great idea and that the least I could do was talk to him. It got to a point where I started leaving my phone at home rather than taking it with me every day. The thought kept crawling through my mind that he had gotten me drunk purposely, thinking I would give into him and let him have his way with me. The more I considered the facts Avan had pointed out the first time he’d heard about my date with Ian, the more I felt like it was all true.

The longer I went without returning the calls, the more often Ian would leave hasty voice messages telling me that he knew I was the girl he was going to be with and he wasn’t just going to go away. It started creeping me out to know I was at home alone all night in the Montgomerys’ massive house. Then the thought hit me that maybe the anonymous letters I had gotten recently were from him. What if Ian was stalking me? If that was the case, I really could be in danger.

Would Ian actually hurt me if I refused to see him? Maybe I could talk to Lena when she got back in town and have her talk to him for me. After all, Ian was her friend, right? If she had not set us up on that stupid blind date, none of this would be happening in the first place.

Deciding that the irritating and excessive calls and text messages from Ian could not continue, I would have to tell Lena about it soon, even if that meant I had to tell her over the phone before she got home. The only time I felt like Ian couldn’t get to me was when I was with Avan. Avan and I were not a couple, but he made me feel safe, and I knew he would not let anything hurt me. I came to the conclusion that if Ian so much as showed up at the house, I would immediately call the police. I knew if he did start showing up and following me, I could always get a restraining order, but I did not want to have to resort to doing so.

For some reason, even though I had not talked to Avan about how crazy Ian had gotten lately, I knew I could call him anytime day or night if I needed to. I still had an uneasy feeling brewing inside of me about staying at home alone, but Lena would be home on Sunday night. If I could just hold out for one more day, she could help me by letting him know I was not interested, once I had a chance to fill her in on what was going on. Based on my avoiding him, he ought to have figured out by now that I did not want to go out with him ever again on his own, but obviously, he needed to be informed more bluntly.

It was Saturday afternoon, and I did not have any plans yet. Wanting to get out and about, I had to come up with something to do since staying at home when I was furious never turned out well. Lena had called a few hours before to let me know she was going to catch an earlier flight in order to get back in the morning rather than tomorrow night. As it turned out, she got two lines playing the part of an extra in a movie about aliens invading the planet.

It sounded like nothing I would take an interest in, but I knew she would end up making me watch it, even if it put me to sleep. Not to mention, we would end up going on a huge shopping trip to find a dress for her to wear when she and Damien would be invited to the movie premiere. Luckily, the movie was still in the early filming stages and had several months to a year of filming and special effects before it would be complete.

As always I put on my best “that is so cool” phone voice, expressing my happiness for her on her minute baby step to stardom. Chances were that before it made it to the final cut she would be clipped right out of the movie altogether. Damien was an awesome special effects engineer, but when it came to the bottom line, the director and producers had the final say so of what stayed and what went.

If her two tiny lines made it into the movie, it would only cause her head to swell even more. It certainly would not help her attitude toward everyone else in society. I mentioned how Ian had turned slightly obsessed, and Lena reacted completely opposite of how I expected her to.

She told me I just needed to give him another chance and agree to go out with him again. According to her, Ian was one of those who liked to move fast when it came to relationships. I guess that would have been okay if I actually liked him and we were in a relationship, but we had only had one date. One blind date did not constitute as being a relationship.

Lena told me she thought I needed to go out with him a few more times to get more of a feel of his personality because he was a really great guy. If that was not enough to make me mad, she kept going on and on about how I should feel lucky and flattered that he liked me so much and that any other girl would kill to have a chance to be with a guy like Ian Bentley. I disliked her answer and felt flustered and angry the more she talked.

She even had the audacity to tell me that having the chance to lose my virginity to a guy like Ian would give me what she called “total pimp points,” making every girl in Oceanview jealous. I could feel my temper heating up as my blood started to boil. I knew what would happen if I let the conversation continue, so I interrupted and cut Lena off in the middle of her rant, telling her something came up and I had to go, hanging up the phone.

After slamming the phone down on Lena and having no better, or more entertaining options to calm me down, I decided to go to the mall. Avan had texted me earlier asking if I was coming tonight for the concert and open mic night. I texted back saying I wasn’t sure since I had some things to take care of.

I went into the kitchen to find Lorenzo going through the spices and making a list of the ones that were outdated and needing to be replaced as he discarded the old bottles.

I told him my plans for going to the mall, letting him know I would be back in time to have dinner with him, and planted a kiss on his cheek. Before walking out the door, I asked if he would like me to pick up the spices he had listed, and he told me that would be great.

The market was interesting because it was not your run-of-the mill neighborhood grocery store. It was called World Market, and it had foods from just about every country on the map.

After making my way to the bakery and back to the fresh fish area, I pulled the list of spices from the pocket of Avan’s jacket to see what all I needed. Lucky for me, Lorenzo was not only great at cooking, but he was also the master of organization. Since all the spices were from different places of origin, he had listed them under the area in the market in which they could be found, as well as alphabetized them so it was easy for me to find what I was looking for. I went from section to section following the list like a road map of the store, collecting all the little bottles that would soon fill the empty spaces of the ones that sat in their place before them.

After collecting the last little bottle from a shelf in the Asian food section, my hand basket was heavy and nearly overflowing. I had never paid attention to how many spices we kept in our kitchen. I tried to come up with an estimated number of the total bottle of spices by guesstimating how many remained in the cabinet that did not need replacements.

Once I had the estimate, I added how many I had marked off on the list as I put them into the basket. I was so distracted with counting I had chosen the longest line to stand in. Not being in any hurry, I opted not to look for a shorter one, even though the lady in front of me had more items in her cart than trees had leaves.

The lady was taking forever to unload her items onto the conveyer belt one at a time as it transported them across the counter to the cashier, who steadily grabbed them and dragged them across the scanner. After holding the heavy hand basket full of spices, my wrist was beginning to ache. I resorted to putting the basket on the floor and scooting with my foot whenever I got to move up a couple of inches. Unlike the magazines that lined the registers at our neighborhood supermarket, the ones at World Market were much more attention grabbing. I also enjoyed looking at the Chinese calendars and astrological forecasts. I was so distracted with all of the organized clutter surrounding the register that I hadn’t even noticed I was holding up the line until the cashier shouted at me to put my basket on the conveyer belt, as I was holding up the line.

The drive from World Market to the Oceanview Mall parking lot only took about five minutes. Seeing as how my birthday was coming up in a few weeks, I decided to spend a little alone time today buying some
I love me
gifts. I never used all of my money from my trust that I was able to access each month, ending up with a surplus. Since I was incapable of spending money on what I referred to as “Lena level,” even after an incredible shopping spree, I still had more money left over than I knew what to do with.

I was by no means a miser, but I just had no need to spend money on a regular basis for no reason either. I usually spent my money on things I needed rather than blew it on things I wanted. For some reason, I did things similar to how we did when I was younger, still living at home with my parents. We went all out on birthdays and Christmas, but even though we could afford the things we wanted without being strapped for money, we were still conservative, which made me appreciate the gifts I got on those occasions a lot more than I would have if I had been allowed to get expensive presents for no reason all of the time.

I knew I was a little premature with my personal birthday shopping, as it would not roll around for another two weeks, but I knew from past experience everything I might want would be sold out before I could even get my hands on it if I put it off. The problem with my birthday is that I was born on Valentine’s Day.

My favorite stores were located throughout the mall on both the first and second floors, so that meant I had quite a lengthy shopping experience ahead of me. Not that I had planned to buy something in each store I visited, but I had a very time-consuming habit of going through my favorite stores to see what each one had to offer, making a mental note of the things I wanted at each place. When I finished going through all the stores, I decided what items my life would not be complete without and went back to retrieve them in the stores where they were found. This was my way of being responsible and not over spending, even though I could afford to if that is what I desired.

I made my way down past the bookstore, an arcade, a kiosk selling cell phones, and a lingerie store before I saw a jewelry store that reminded me of my most special childhood memory that I had made with my dad. When I was five, my dad brought me to the mall one Saturday, holding my hand as he led me to a jewelry store. He said he had gone there a few weeks before with a special request for the jeweler to design something especially for me.

He told me I would be the only one in the whole wide world who ever had anything like it. As we walked inside, I saw all the beautiful precious stones and settings. We passed earrings, engagement rings, wedding sets, diamond bracelets, and sparkling necklaces. Walking through the store had felt incredible as I looked around, stunned at how the light made all of the beautiful jewels sparkle and shine.

As we made our way to the counter at the back of the store where a short, bald headed man with round, gold rimmed glasses stood, he smiled at us, telling my dad his treasure was finished. My dad nodded and returned a smile, and the little man disappeared through a curtain into the back where he worked on jewelry of all kinds.

Coming back through the curtains, the man carried a small, black, velvet box in his hands. He placed it on the counter in front of my dad and slid it toward him. My dad picked up the little velvet box and knelt down in front of me as he opened it carefully. I looked inside and saw a golden charm bracelet that had shiny golden angels all the way around it, except for one that was a heart with an engraving that read
Daddy’s Special Angel
.

He lifted the beautiful golden bracelet out of the box, and clasping it around my wrist, he told me that it would always remind me angels would protect me. Every year he would take me to the jewelry store and get more links put in and another unique little angel designed just for me, dangling with the others around my wrist, reminding me that I was my daddy’s special angel and they would always watch over me.