MUSIC TRACK LIST:
EELS – BEGINNERS LUCK
BOB DYLAN – I WANT YOU
***
David's POV
After I deposited Atticus's check at the bank and returned home to make my landlord a very happy man, I pretty much spent the weekend curled up in the fetal position on the floor of my bathroom. I guess I really overdid it at lunch and would have to ease back into eating just like any ex-con used to a strict prison diet would. Freedom is a gradual process, at least as far as the digestive system is concerned.
Between all the retching and kvetching, I had forgotten all about the All Your Fates app and my epic fortune. Instead, with my bare back resting against the cool grey ceramic tile of the cramped bathroom, I stared at the baby blue paint peeling off the ceiling and tried not to anticipate much of anything. There wasn't really any point. Yeah, I would be able to work again...in the field I was trained to do. But no one would ever know of it. And once the project was over, what then? If I couldn't even claim to have worked on the project that was largely based on my own ideas, how would I get any type of decent work after? It was an impossible situation, but I had no choice to work under Atticus at this point. No one else would have me. And not many minimum wage employers were hiring ex-students from the field of Music, Science and Technology. Ex-students fired from their last place of employment and kicked out of school for academic dishonor to boot.
Maybe my proximity to Atticus would prick his conscious, prompting him to admit to the Dean and his hand in all that happened with Alice...
I shook my head, and banished the thought. The best way to think of Atticus was to remember he was only in it for himself, and the sooner I remembered that the better off I would be.
It would be great to get back to my work. Yes, I indulged myself by calling it "my" work when alone to myself. Why shouldn't I? It was my idea, my theory, my practical sound engineering skills – well maybe my sound engineering wasn't that practical in the grand scheme of things. But for all intents of purposes, I would have been the co-author had not Atticus convinced me it was better to put the grant proposal in his name seeing I was merely an undergrad at the time and all – to which he had a point. If only had been patient and waited until I was in the midst of a masters. But getting a masters would have been dependent on a receiving a fellowship in a highly competitive field, which working under Atticus would have given an upper edge on doing. At least that was the reasoning at the time.
I had enough of thinking this over and over again in my little merry-go-round mind. Perhaps I was beginning to feel well enough to get off the bathroom floor and live a little. I had a little change burning a hole in my pocket and I was itching to get out and live large.
I checked the time. If I got a move on it, I could just make it to the last hour of the last day of the farmers' market. The best time to get the best deals. I didn't have anything in particular in mind. I just wanted to have the luxury of spending money. Any small amount would feel like a real treat at this point.
Even though I was pretty weak, my legs were too eager to walk at a safe steady pace. Several times on the way I had to stop and rest from pushing myself too hard into near dizzy spells. And the smell of street foods drove me between being wild with desire and sick with nausea both at once. Isn't that the worst feeling?
As soon as I got to the crowded market, I made a beeline for a table lined with milk-crates packed full of vinyl records that was sat up next to strawberries and organic peanuts. "These fruity records drive us nuts!" a sign read between the two. I smiled and felt sick. I had sold my direct drive turntable on craigslist to partially pay my rent a few months back, but now I anticipated that in a few weeks I could more than afford to get another one. I'd get a Behringer mixing board, a new subwoofer, and some stupid Skullcandy headphones.
I started eagerly flipping through records, having to force myself not to buy the whole crate then and there, which had everything from Iggy Pop to Samantha Fox to Gregorian chants. I finally settled on Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, which I likely already owned but it felt like kismet somehow, thinking back to my epic fortune. Now in the past, I would have bartered the price down but feeling rich also had made me feel generous so I paid the whole amount: a whopping five bucks.
Brown-paper wrapped album in hand, I sauntered towards the next booth, and viewed the sundry of vintage knickknacks on tables: aluminum wartime canisters and ivory bone carved cigar cases and stacks of faded sienna-printed stereoscope cards. In the midst of the eclectic riffraff, I spotted a glass prism paperweight and chuckled. The prism was an actual pyramid like the one on the album cover I held in my hands. Before I could reach for the paperweight, another hand from across the table grabbed it, and felt its weight in a small feminine palm; the rainbow light cast from the prism danced all around the table as it buoyed up and down. I looked up at the woman holding the prism.
Have you ever had a moment that shakes you to the core? Like one moment you are just standing there minding your own business when BAM! you feel the electricity stirring in the air nanoseconds before you are thunderstruck?
It took a moment to place her but it was definitely the girl. The one from the All Your Fates flyer. In the flesh.
She was even more beautiful in person and with two eyes on her face. Her hair was softer, less curly, more buttery than in the flyer. And her eye color was not violet but the dark smoldering grey blue of a heavy ponderous sky right before a thunderstorm. But that same strength, ancient power, and impetuous charm were all there present in the face that was literally an arm's length reach away from me.
I just stared at her with my mouth open and watched as she gingerly set the prism down. Her heavy moon shaped eyes fell upon mine as she looked up, and then she scrunched her nose at my expression, before quickly turning away. Like I was some skeevy perv drooling over her. Realizing my jaw was gaping, I took my hand and pushed my chin up until my teeth clamped shut.
As I watched her swivel over to the next table, my mind raced in all directions at once. I'd try to translate but the closest approximation of what the twelve different languages my mind spoke in at once would be: "whut."
I wandered over to the next table where the girl was now examining the pearl beading on a vintage clutch purse. I pretended to look at some mirrored aviators, "Cool Hand Luke" sunglasses, while peeking at her out of the corner of my eye. Hot damn was she hawt. One of those cool chilled out blondes...the sophisticated regal type, ya know? The kind in vintage blue films whom would be all ice queens at the beginning but fire pokers in the sack by the end. My eyes wandered over her nude colored skinny dress with the swinging skirt, the pull-tie belt flat and tight against her narrow waist, the buttoned-up blouse opening right above the creamy skin of her cleavage contrasting against the rest of her glowing sun-kissed tan. Stop thinking with your dick, David, and concentrate!
I put the sunglasses on, and imagining myself looking pretty boss, looked up at her with a broad cheesy smile. "Uh...how do they look?" I asked while the price tag hanging from the bridge tickled my nose. She looked up at me and squinted with a sour expression that said, "Puhlease, don't even think about trying to charm me, asshat," before she turned away.
I coughed nervously, and took them off mumbling to myself, "Everyone's a critic." By now the girl was examining vintage silk gloves on the table but I could see the faintest smirk in the secret corners of her mouth. Was that smile for me? It gave me hope and reminded me of the smile on the card, the smile that beckoned me to come hither and here I was: hithering in my boots and wondering what secrets she had pinned there. Isn't that what they call a Mona Lisa smile?
It was too weird though, her being here and yet being on the card I had just received in the mail. "Shouldn't you be in Sweden," I asked aloud before I even realized I had said anything. Her head snapped up and she stared at me with ice in her eyes.
"What was that?" she demanded rather than asked. Her voice had a slight lilt to it. A faint accent that I guess could be Swedish. Thankfully she didn't sound at all like the Swedish Chef. I couldn't imagine more of a turn off than a hot chick whispering sweet nothings of Börk börk börk in my burning ears.
"Um," I stammered, "It's nothing—"
"No," she accused in the tone of a country schoolmarm and I felt my cheeks grow hot, "You said something about me and Sweden."
"Oh, that," I countered, "Yeah...I was just thinking...you should be there."
"And why would that be? You aren't INS...are you?" Her voice was in command but I could tell that it was laid on thicker than necessary, leading me to suspect there was more fear behind the question than was self-evident on the surface.
"Ah, no...It's just. I've seen you before. On an ad for some online psychic network I received in the mail, postmarked from Sweden."
"A psychic network..." she carefully enunciated after me and I felt like a complete newb.
"More like a flyer...you were wearing a choker with a spider," I was on the verge of stammering. Where's a wingman when you need one?
"—It wasn't me," she said with finality.
"It looks like you..."
"So what. Can't people look like other people?" she shot back with cold defiance in her eyes.
"I guess they can, but...well, a face as beautiful as yours isn't exactly a dime a dozen." I was hoping the soft compliment would soften her attitude, but I was wrong. She practically recoiled from my praise like I had just offered her drink of curdled milk.
"Wait," I cried out. I felt like such a dick but I couldn't just let her go like that. "I think I have it on me." Now don't you laugh, I had stuffed it in my pocket before I went to meet Atticus as a reminder that the fates really would be kinder to me in the future. I dug into my pocket and pulled the crumpled up flyer out, "It's right here."
"I don't see the point in you showing it to me. I already told you it isn't me. Are you calling me a liar?"
I let my hand drop. What the hell was her problem? "Noooo. I just, well it looks a lot like you. Maybe it's a long lost twin you never knew you had. Or a doppelganger. Or someone photoshopped your face onto it. Stranger things have happened."
She hesitated at the corner of the table – perhaps out of curiosity or perhaps to indulge the whim of a stranger who may or may not work for immigration, I don't know. Regardless, I took that as my chance and opened up the flyer, smoothing it out for her.
The girl took it in her hand, regarded it for a moment. "Very interesting," she said with a tight-lipped mouth as she handed it back to me.
Very interesting? What the hell does she mean by that? I never got to ask her though because before I had the chance, she spun around and charged away, her beige high heels clipping the pavement with each powerful stride.
And I felt a strange magnetic tug towards her, a powerful gravitational pull, that did not lessen the further and further she got away from me.
"It's not fair." I thought to myself... but then again... Fuck me. Maybe it was. Maybe it was what I deserved. Maybe it was what I needed. Maybe... just maybe this was my destiny.
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A/N
So wonderful to see we have a dedicated readership of over 100 readers now. We had almost 50 reads within the first half an hour of posting -- I guess you guys can't wait! Really exciting and we appreciate the support so much! If you have a moment and liked this chapter, just make sure to vote! And as always: we love to hear your comments. Very proud of the fact that EunicePang is now using All Your Fates as an incentive to finish studying. MAKE US PROUD! Maybe if you get an A in History we should dedicate a special bonus chapter just for you! ;)
What did you think of David and Emma's first meeting? Poor David...he just has a knack of not being suave in the most need-to-be suave moment.
If you liked this chapter, you'll love the next when we revisit their fist meeting through Emma's eyes. What will she think of David's first impression? What do you think?
You'll find out ON SATURDAY at noon Eastern when we release the second part of Invisible Leash.
<3
~C
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