A light wind blows, bringing a pleasant smell. Livy smells good.
The man was making a soft snuffling sound as he buried his nose in the hollow of Astrid's neck.
He had called her Livy, but the rest of them had called her Astrid.
Livy is only mine, but Astrid is everyone's Astrid," he declared.
Then the man violently pressed his hip as if to hold Astrid down onto the bed through his last words.
Astrid's forehead felt as though it was on fire, it was so hot. She struggled to peel her eyes open, her hands shaking. Who was that above her? What had happened to her vision? Her eyes were suddenly filled with what she could only imagine to be mist.
She tried and failed to look in the direction of the man—up or down.
It was already 9am when Astrid woke up.
"Why did I dream of those kind of dreams?", she sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Maybe it's because of the hormone? I do not have any special feelings for anyone though".
As I can't solve it, I'll leave it alone for now."
"Today's so busy. Today is the day we're supposed to hold the dinner party. Even if it is at night, preparation is still needed.
Ginevra had dispatched over a life assistant. The woman had programmed many routines.
After breakfast Astrid was to wash the skin on her body. It also extended to doing her hair. She was supposed to put the clothes on, since they'd come by mail already three days ago, and if some were not fitting she was supposed to fix them as quickly, because she needed them for that night.
Astrid finished her meal and headed towards the exit. Her assistant Coraline Faulkner said, "Ms. Bennett the meeting is at 10 o'clock and you're running late." bringing the car around.
Coraline had worked for the Bennett Group previously. Ginevra had handpicked her to be the personal life assistant because of her efficiency and impressive capabilities.
She then became life helper of Astrid.
"Please call me by my name." Astrid stepped into the car.
Coraline followed easily. "Okay Astrid. We don't have much time. I need to drive a little bit faster. Can you make sure you're laying down tight?"
Astrid nodded slightly and fixed her gaze on the window beside her as they passed a street called Grove Street after ten minutes. "But we had to go to Grove Street" Astrid remarked, pointing at the sign that was fixed next to the road on Coraline's right side.
"No wonder it looks strange." Coraline said as she looked at the street sign and realized she'd been going in the wrong direction.
"Oh, this is just great!" Coraline said aloud. She wanted to turn and go back but there was no sign of which way to turn.
"Keep walking," Astrid said without looking at her. "You'll come to an intersection up here, turn left. Keep going straight for three blocks then take a right on Bellamy Avenue. The beauty salon's right down the street."
Coraline did in fact make it to Bellamy Avenue by following Astrid's directions.
She breathed a sigh of relief, anxious to talk with Astrid. "Astrid, do you know this place? Do you come here a lot?
"No." Astrid gave a headshake. "I've never been here before,"
"How in the world can you know the directions that well?" Coraline asked, taken aback. Astrid hadn't seemed to have used her phone for navigation, but she knew the turns and road splits rather well—as if she'd driven by it more than once.
" Oh, I studied the map. I knew which roads you could drive on."
Does she know the map by heart? Did she memorize it after giving it a quick glance?
"I am a regular at this salon and I am well versed with this path but I was not aware of an alternate route. But Astrid just gave a look at the map and in no time she was aware about this region.
"She is a genius," Coraline muttered to herself.
In fact, for the first split second Coraline couldn't tell whether Astrid was joking or if she actually had some sort of magical ability to remember everything with just a quick glance.
It was important to realize that with all of the junctions and splits maps could get more than a little confusing. Some people who hadn't gone that way in months or years had, apparently, simply ceased remembering how.
Astrid had taken to wolfing down her lunch because she'd be going flat-out for the rest of the day. Nothing she couldn't string out until evening.
Just before they started with the supper, Coraline drove back Astrid.
While seating on the back seat, Astrid was looking out of window. During this time traffic was at its peak. And she was driving at very slow speed. Only few kilometers and it took us over thirty minutes to reach there. Time crunch.
"Astrid, we don't have much time," Coraline said as they both wiped the tiny beads of sweat from their brows. She motioned to the subway entrance in front of her. "This road is too busy. Mind if we take the subway instead?"
"Subway?" Astrid repeated to herself, laughing softly and nibbling at her lower lip a moment.
With this?" She pointed to her three inch high heels and long, ice blue ceremonial dress.
It was practically impossible to take the metro in this outfit. "Well, I'll just have to find a way to get you back as fast as possible then," Coraline replied blushing.
She contused the throttle during the speech and crashed into the white car in front of her. "Oh no!"
Coraline closed her eyes and twirled around once, shouting, "Astrid, give me the subway." I'll do it.
Astrid looked Coraline over and found her quite interesting. "Are you going to stay?"
With a nod, Coraline said, "I need to stay here. I'll have to wait for the insurance company's agent to come so we can talk with the police and see who is at fault.
The reason was reasonable.
But Astrid said nothing, she simply looked up and glanced at Coraline.
For a moment Coraline thought that people could somehow hear her thoughts if they looked straight at her. She felt foolish in the next instant and tried to explain herself by saying: "I took a wrong turn. I didn't know it was Friday."
"Astrid, do we have some spare clothes?" She took the subway with that dress and it looked like a some crushed vegetable leaves." she thought to herself.
Astrid has been to a couple of such parties. She would usually bring an extra set of clothes because there was no guarantee that accidents wouldn't happen. If she spilled anything on her clothes, she had to change into clean ones in the changing room.
"Oh?" Coraline was surprised. She didn't think Astrid would know about her extra clothes. She asked, "Isn't this her first time attending such a luxurious banquet?"
Coraline was shocked, but she replied immediately, "The one you wore was the only one prepared; your clothes were all tailor-made in Moriland."
"Am I the only one?" Astrid pondered aloud.
Astrid giggled softly. "Definitely not just a pretty face," she responded, still gazing up at Coraline with her stunningly dark and cavernous eyes, her voice holding so much subliminal undertone.
She talked for a bit before she got out and I looked across to see Cormac reading some documents with his feet up on the back seat of a fancy car nearby.
Ellis sat beside him in the baby chair, shouting at the driver, "play a song, Mr. Ward!" as he kicked his two skinny white legs.
Cormac looked at Ellis casually as he lost concentration from the papers.
Ellis was sharp as a tack, and picked up his fathers mood in an instant. He felt like his father despised him.
Cormac was holding up papers. "I'm working," he said. Ellis's lovely eyes lengthened into a frown when he heard these words, and speaking through his frown in the hard, shrill voice of command that he could so suddenly take on, "If you can work," he asked Cormac, "why can't I listen to music?" He put a good deal of emphasis into it, but as soon as he had spoken, with an if involuntarily blurred by an irritation he bit at the inside of his mouth until his eyes were wet and tears were coming.
It was planned he would come with me today. But he worked all day, and he even made Mr. Ward go with me to the theme park." Ellis mumbled to herself.
Ellis frowned at that.
More than a year. Exactly how long the boy had been in kindergarten, nobody really knew for sure. And while every one of his fellow kindergarteners had both a mother and a father, he'd always had only a father. A father who didn't see him much.
Like too many other young ones in this great land, little Ellis was no stranger to isolation and loneliness.
Cormac sighed and rubbed his temples, then looked out the window. His son was on the verge of tears but he didn't actually let them fall.
At that moment, he happened to look up and saw someone he knew.
Livy… With a mumbled "Stop!" Cormac curtly shot the driver his precise demands.