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No, I want only the joy and infectious laughter I’d found these last few months with the little dark haired sprite with the sparking grey eyes that pulled at me without even trying. I felt lighter than I had in years, not since I was a kid in fact.
As I drove through the busy afternoon streets, passing places I’d frequented as a child, I found a new excitement in the town I’d stopped even noticing since I became an adult and went off to university, before joining up. Now as I passed old landmarks I couldn’t wait to take her to some of them with me. To share that side of my life with her. Things I hadn’t given a thought to in years suddenly had new meaning.
The old movie theatre I used to take girls to in high school so that I could spend the whole length of the show trying to get into their pants. I wanted to take her there. Or the nice Italian restaurant that had always been one of my favorites.
I had the radio on blast, and hummed along, something I hadn’t done in damn near ten years. She was so good for me, and it was only now that the other bullshit had been cleared away that I could truly see it. I do believe I can be a better man with her at my side.
She makes me hope for things that I never cared much about, but now wanted them all for her, with her. I want to walk down by the old promenade, eating an ice cream cone, while holding her hand in mine. Dammit, I hadn’t planned on becoming a complete sap, but here I am planning our first date as man and woman.
8
I went straight home from Helen’s place. I had no doubt she’d already called my mother before I cleared the door and was probably even now relaying the events that transpired during my visit. It didn’t matter though, as long as my mother stayed away from the cottage I really didn’t care at this point.
I was just in time it looked like as I saw her personal assistant slipping through the hedges that separated the two properties as I drove up the long driveway. I stomped on the brakes and jumped out of the car. “Hold it.” She stopped in her tracks and turned back to me with a look of astonishment on her face as I made my way towards her.
I don’t know much about her, other than that her name is Jill or something like that I think. The daughter of a fallen family or so I’ve heard. That means her family had once amassed great wealth but had lost it sometime in the last century. Very clannish the wealthy. I imagine mom was bemoaning the fact that she’d gone outside and hired Lucia’s family as opposed to going with a recommendation from one of her cohorts.
“Where are you going?” As if I didn’t know. She searched for an excuse but wasn’t quick enough. “I hear you like to make house calls. You can go back inside and get your things, you’re fired.” I think that’s the first time I’d fired anyone. It beats wringing her fucking neck for what she’d done, what she’d almost cost me.
She seemed to be struck dumb for a few seconds but found her voice soon enough. “You can’t fire me, I work for Mrs. Sullivan.”
“Don’t kid yourself sweetheart. I’m sure my mother has given you the impression that she runs everything around her including me, but nothing can be farther from the truth. Now get your shit and get the hell off my property. And if you ever go near Lucia again, I’ll have you arrested.”
I didn’t realize I was this angry until she was standing before me, in the process of doing that shit again. Anyone who found such ease in threatening a young girl, using threats against her family to get their way, wasn’t deserving of my leniency.
True she’d only been carrying out my mother’s orders, but I have no doubt she’d enjoyed her little task. The fact that Lucia had been about to bolt after that one meeting with her told me all I needed to know about how that shit went down.
She didn’t bother arguing, just turned on her heel and ran back to the house. No doubt she was another one who believed that my mother would save her. After what she’d done mom should be looking out for her own neck.
It’s true I’ve let her have her way in most things for the past decade or so, or more to the point, my whole damn life. But she’d gone too far this time. I’m not a child for her to control. How dare she try to run my life?
