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Yet another scary night. At least it was all over now. For the moment, at least. That basement, and the ruins across the street from the library - they were ancient. Much older than the library. I can only assume that the reason that basement, or whatever it was, was cleared out was because the university. Maybe they're thinking of using it for something, maybe an annex or a storage area for the library. But then, why was it inaccessible to everyone? In fact, it wasn't there when it was daytime. And I suppose the whole purpose of Marie bringing me there was just to retrieve those diaries. I was burning to read them. Maybe I can do that when I got back to the apartment.But then I remembered I had a date, with Laurie the coffee girl. A date... Mon dieu. It is embarassing to admit it, but this would be my first date. In any case, it was my dearest wish that Marie does not show up while I was on my date. Dates and fantôme - they do not go well together... My name is Mark. And this is the continuation of my Halloween story. |
*** Mark ***
I rode my replica Aprilia RS50 Rossi moped as fast as I could, hurrying back to my appartement. I looked at my watch and I saw it was already four-thirty in the morning. I do not want to get there while the girls were just getting ready for the work - for some reason I knew that they would wake up at around five so that they could be ready to leave by six AM.
But in less than dix minutes, I was back.
I did, however, switch off my motor and coasted to the curb for the last few mètres - that way, I would not wake up the girls.
I went into the house on my tippy-toes, went to ma chambre and quickly changed into mon pyjamas.
I stood in front of my mirror and, as I was looking at myself, I was shocked to see that I was now a blonde.
- - - - -
Pretty soon, I could hear my two friends stirring. After a moment, I heard their shower. Someone knocked on my bedroom door and, without waiting for me to repsond, Kristy came in.
"Markie?" she said, clad in nothing but a bra and panties, with a towel thrown casually over a shoulder. "Cute jammies," she giggled. "Can I use your shower? Nancy beat me to ours..."
I looked at her. I will never get over how beautiful Kristy was. Her and Nancy. I mutely pointed to my en suite bathroom.
"Thank you kindly, young sir," Kristy said in her native Southern accent, which she knew I liked (how I knew that, I do not know). She proceeded to the shower.
After a minute, I heard the shower start.
That meant I was alone - the two girls were taking their showers. So I decided to make them some breakfast. I knew I was no cook in any shape or form but, for some reason, I felt like cooking something this morning.
In the little kitchen, I looked through the cupboards, and I found some canned peaches, some eggs, apples and dry chinese sausages in a packet. But nothing more appropriate for breakfast.
And there was no fresh bread. All there were was three-fourths of a loaf of stale bread from last week. "Oh, ben ça alors," I exclaimed in frustration. It seemed that Olivia had forgotten the bread. I guess I, or one of the girls will need to go to 7-Eleven sometime today.
I decided to make pain perdu, ummm, I mean french toast. After all, what else can one do with stale bread? Besides, unlike in France, where they consider this more like dessert, nous américains like le french toast for breakfast.
I opened le frigidaire and got a carton of milk, poured some into a bowl, cracked some eggs into it, added un peu de sucre et de cannelle, I mean sugar and cinnamon, and started beating le eggs.
I then noticed my words... I was mixing Français with Américain! I must stop doing that! Damn!
I then soaked the stale bread in the mixture, put some butter in a skillet and started frying them. In another skillet, I got some of the chinese sausages, cut them in half, added some chopped scallions and garlic, and fried them.
I then cored some apples, quartered them, dipped them liberally in sugar, and put them in the oven.
Pretty soon, Nancy, fresh and clean from her shower and wearing her usual blue scrubs and a cardigan came in.
"Whoah!" she reacted. "You're awake!"
"I thought I would cook you two some breakfast for a change," I said. "Go and take your seat." I put the carton of milk, the jug of orange juce, some marmalade, a squeeze-bottle of honey I found near the bread bin, and started some coffee.
Nancy set three plates and appropriate cutlery in three place settings and sat. "So, blondie, what's for breakfast?"
Blondie. She said that like she has always known me to be a blonde...
"Did someone say breakfast?" Kristy came in, squeaky clean and wearing her usual white nurse's tunic and trousers.
"Good morning, gorgeous," she said, and bussed me on the cheek. She gave Nancy a quick hug and sat.
"I thought I would make you the french toast and some sausages."
The girls giggled. "The french toast," Nancy giggled. "Your accent is so sexy, Markie, I can listen to it all day."
I gave her le razzberry (heehee) and dished up my food.
"Mmmm!" Kristy said. "This is pretty good!"
"Put some butter on the toast," I suggested, "and then some honey."
They followed my suggestion, and then I put little cubes of peaches on top of the honey.
"Mmm!"
I poured them some coffee as they went through the toast and sausages like buzz-saws. So I dished up some more toast for them. And they finished those in nothing flat as well.
In mere minutes, they had finished everrything, and were eyeing my toast as I took a bite. They were looking at my food like bulldogs contemplating a steak.
"No!" I said, giggling. "This is mine! You cannot have any!"
"Awww..."
My little kitchen timer dinged and I got up to bring out my roasted apples. I let them cool down for a minute and put the entire non-stick pan on the dinner table.
The thin layer of carameled sugar gave the apple slices a crunchy texture, and they enjoyed those as well.
"So," I said, drinking a tall glass of milk, "what time do you think you will be back from your shifts in the hospital?"
"It's a Sunday today, so it'll just be a half-shift," Kristy replied. "We should be back by two or so. Do you want to do something?"
"Actually," I said, a bit hesitantly, "I have a date today. I might not be in until late."
"Oooh!" Nancy squealed. "So who's the lucky guy?" But Kristy elbowed her. "Ummm, I mean 'lucky girl?'"
I wondered what that was about. "Laurie?" I replied. "She works in my favorite café?"
"Hmmm..." Kristy said. "Where is this café?"
"It is that cute café and pâtisserie across that street from the library? She is one of the barristas there."
"Hmmm... are you sure about this? I mean, a barrista - you can do better."
Nancy was shocked. She hit Kristy on the shoulder. "Kris!" she scolded. "How can you say that? That's got nothing to do with anything!"
"What! Markie can do better."
"If you don't know what you said wrong, then I'm not talking to you for the rest of the day." She then turned to me. "So, Markie. Is she nice? Is she cute?" It was a transparent attempt at changing the subject, but I appreciated it.
"Yes," I said. "Very much. I like her."
"Where are you going for your date?"
"Laurie said she wanted to go to the State Fair. It is the last day today, so it would be her last chance. But..."
"But what, dear?"
"It is embarassing to admit it, but this is my first real date... and, to be honest, I am a little nervous." I laughed a bit at my sophomoric little admission.
Nancy came around and gave me a kiss. "Don't be. Just be yourself - be your natural, charming and cute self, and it'll all be fine." She kissed me again. "But, more than that, have fun!"
"I'll try. Thank you, Nancy."
- - - - -
It was nearing 6AM, so the two hurried to their little auto, and roared away towards the university hospital just as the sun was peaking out over the horizon.
I waved from the curb and watched them go down Elm and hang a right on University Drive, and in seconds, they were out of sight.
As they were driving away, I had seen through the rear windscreen Nancy yelling at Kristy as she drove. I guess Nancy got really irritated by what Kristy said. Oh, well. C'est la vie.
For a minute or so, I stood at the curb, just on the off-chance that they might come back. But when I was sure that the girls have gone, I went to my moto in the shed. I got the diaries from underneath the seat and brought them to the house.
But, as I was about to step through the door, I had some second thoughts - I decided to knock les deux journaux against each other to shake the dirt and dust from them. I coughed a little bit with the dust, but I shook out most of the dirt.
I brought them into the kitchen, got several paper towels and wetted them a little bit, and used them to wipe down the outside covers of the two notebooks.
I poured myself une tasse de café, sat down and took a deep breath.
"All right, dear child," I said to myself. "Be brave."
I opened the first one and started reading.
*** Mark and Marie ***
I read the cover page, and it said, in French, "My Personal Journal, Marianne Archer - June 1989."
Wow.
I felt my hand tremble a bit. This was Marie's handwriting. Oh, my god. The ghost.
I took a sip of my coffee, took another breath, and opened to the first page, and read her words. It was all in French, but it was a sign how much I have accepted my new changes that I wasn't jumping out of my skin anymore everytime I caught myself speaking or thinking in French, or looking at my new newly blonde hair.
The trick, I found, was to not to think about it.
I started to read.
- - - - -
So, dear diary. Let me introduce myself: my name is Marianne Nicolette LePortier Archer, the only child of Abigail and Matthew. I am new to America, and am just about to start university.
We have just moved to America to escape our troubles back home. Papa was a fairly well-off businessman in America, and it was the most convenient thing for us to move there. So we had packed up everything, and set up in papa's house in the east coast of the country.
But city life, at least American city life, did not agree with me, so mama and papa thought I should experience a less... frenetic kind of life, so Aunt Olivia helped me enroll in a college with a more rural kind of setting. Papa agreed and said life was more sedate yet not an isolated kind of life there, with all the benefits of a cosmopolitan kind of city in a small-town setting. And when I graduated, maybe I would be more adjusted to America and I might want to move back home with them.
That sounded a little specious, but we all knew what it really was about.
I do not want to brag, dear diary, but I am a special girl.
My aunt explained that within me was something magical, and this whatever it was, it was something that many would like to posess. And many have tried to get it, the last time someone tried to, they were almost successful. It was only my papa's quick thinking and amazing driving skills that allowed us to escape my would-be kidnappers.
But for mama, that was one too many already, and she and papa decided.
So, here I am, dear diary, thousands of miles from home and quite lonely.
Mama says that they will not follow and we would therefore be safe. If just for that, I would endure anything.
- - - - -
Hello, dear diary. It is me again. I have just moved into my new apartment, and have started to set up house and started attending my classes.
Papa said that it was a bit laid back here, and indeed it was, compared to New York or Paris. But the young people here were friendly for the most part. I worried that being a foreigner among American provincials would make it hard for me to fit in, but it turns out, being the only French girl on campus actually made it easier.
I do not know why, but Americans are so very attracted to the accent. I use it to my advantage, of course and I am now quite popular in my class. And it helped that I knew English - I learned it from my American father, although the American accent did not stick... which was fortunate heehee.
I suppose it is unfair to call the people here as "provincial," because they are not. It is only the bucolic setting that lends a backwoods vibe to the campus.
I have, in fact, been to the nearby town already, and it was actually a nice town - very current, progressive and modern, though on a scale appropriate to a small town.
I have high hopes that moving here was the answer to my family's problems.
- - - - -
Hello, diary. It wasn't a good week this week. I thought I had adjusted already, and have been quite happy for the most part. Did you know, I have a boyfriend now? Well, nothing is final. But I have been going on dates pretty regularly with him. And I have a lot of friends now.
I have also finally decided on a degree. I picked parapsychology. I did not even know that the university even had such a course but for Aunt Olivia telling me about it.
It was currently the least popular program, especially for a university known for its music program and the many musical prodigies that it turns out.
I picked that course because... well, I will tell you about it later. So, for now, I am taking a bachelor's degree in psychology, with a minor in parapsychology, eventually to get a masters and then a Ph.D. in parapsychology.
It seemed that things were falling into place, but then this week had to happen.
Arnie and I (Arnie is my boyfriend) had a fight this week, and it was a big one. It was much ado about nothing, really, but in relationships, even inconsequential things can be magnified. We have not spoken since, but I hope we will get past this soon.
And then I have been finding things missing from my bag, or misplacing things, and almost all of my professors seem to have been picking on me by calling on me more than my classmates, and I was getting all the tough questions while the others got the easy ones.
And this morning, there was a surprise test and I did not pass. In my entire life, I have never failed a test!
I wanted to cry.
These were small things, to be sure, and we all have bad days, so this may just be just one of them.
But I had this feeling that it was more than that. More sinister.
But, dear diary, this afternoon, there was the oddest thing. While I was walking down the main hall in the Arts and Sciences Building, someone from inside one of the lecture halls - someone whose face I did not see - reached out from the darkness of the room and grabbed me by the arm.
His hand was like a vice and he hurt my arm by how strongly he gripped it, but, also, his hand was ice cold.
I dropped my books and screamed, but the boy did not let go, and tried to pull me into the darkness of that room. I pulled back, but he kept on holding on to me. A couple of boys in the hallway heard me and rushed to my aid. They helped pull me back, and dragged the rapist (for I thought it was a rapist) out with me.
When the afternoon sun hit the boy on the arm, he hissed, like the sunshine on his skin was painful. He let go and I and the two boys helping me fell back, and we landed in a heap on the floor.
One of them leaped up and ran into the darkened room, and pulled out one of my classmates from an earlier class. He looked bewildered, as if he did not know what was happening.
This boy was a shy boy, specially around me, and I knew it could not be him, but I looked down at his arm and I saw some angry red areas on it and on his hand, almost like blisters, just in the areas where the rapist was hit with the afternoon sun.
I looked at his face, but all I saw was confusion. He clearly did not understand what was happening.
But around him was a... coldness that I felt before, during those times when someone or other was trying to kidnap me, or trying to hurt my family.
It was my fear that the reason we left home - that it has followed us here.
I must call mama and papa, and tell them what has happened.
Author’s Postscript: Again, sorry for typos and grammar. I will clean it up later - as usual, I am scrambling to finish by my 8PM eastern deadline, so I didn't have any time to proofread.
I again ask - no left-handed comments about grammar errors or typos, please! I'll fix them, I promise. If you really want to point them out, please PM me instead of embarassing me in public?
Also, I've not had time to retrofit Monique's corrections to my French in the previous installments, but I promise to do this eventually.
Anyway, hope this doesn't detract too much from the reading.
À bientôt.
- Bobbie
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Comments
Bobbie,...
I give up. You are an incredible amazing author. I have yet to find a story by you I do not thoroughly enjoy. What can I say. Just your average old American fan boy. ^_^ T.
I am a Proud mostly Native American woman. I am bi-polar. I am married, and mother to three boys. I hope we can be friends.
Dry Chinese sausages
Haven’t had that for a long time!
My father used to buy them fresh made and I prefer the juicier variety myself. There is a drier variety if that is what is mentioned here but it does not burst with flavor like the wetter ones.
They are far superior to western style ones.