— May 20th - Chapter One (this is a small fanfiction. enjoy!)
‘’Grandma!’’ someone calleds her from behind, but she barely hears it. Aeofie’s right ear was losing its functioning already. Of course, that’s what happens..she was about to turn 79 years old. She was already very weak and nobody knows if she was going to make it longer than expected.
It was her grandchild that called her. Her only grandchild, Lucy. She was the most beautiful girl in the world, her porcelain skin and her brown/green eyes reminded Aeofie of somebody who was, and still is very important to her. Lucy’s grandfather..she had never met and she never will.
‘’Look what I found!’’ she said getting closer to her grandmother who was sitting in a wheel chair smelling some of the flowers someone changed for her this morning. She showed her a picture, a really old one, but you could see it perfectly. She instantly remembers back in time as she sees the image, many pictures and memories coming inside her head. She smiled so big, even her wrinkles disappeared.
‘’Oh!’’ she said ‘’Look at this!’’ Aeofie took the old picture in her hands. She could see her young self sitting in a swing, and a young, very good looking boy stood behind her with a big smile on his face. You could barely see this picture’s colors, but she had her hands on top of a baby blue skirt that was high on the waist and a flower shirt that hung loose, just as she loved them in those days. She wore red lips, they made her look even more stunning than she already was. Her hair was curled up in the nicest ways, people right now would kill for curls so beautiful and natural looking right now. She was barefoot in the picture as well as the boy that seemed about to take a hold on her when the swing came down. The picture was taken perfectly, it looked as if some professional had taken it. The boy, wore brown pants with suspenders and had a white plaid shirt tucked in. She had never seen a smile so beautiful like his’ before, even through all this years she fought with the world hoping someone would have the same, honest, kind smile he once had.
‘’Who is she grandma?’’ her granddaughter asked curiously.
Aeofie sighed, smiled after looking away, not very sure where. ‘’Well, I think you’re old enough now..’’ she said ‘’I’m going to tell you a story, Lucy. Come here now’’ her sweet voice had a power in her granddaughters ears she instantly followed her old grandmothers steps as she went inside her room and took out a box from her closet. She sat down on her bed and started opening the old box.
‘’The boy in the picture, is your grandfather.’’ She cleared her throat and Lucy looked at her astonished. She never knew that, she always thought her grandfather was Stanley. They always educated her that way, now, she was 14..she was obliged to tell her granddaughter the truth.
‘’I could start explaining that from there but…whats the case of doing it if I don’t tell you everything from the very beginning?’’ Aeofie said. Lucy was already sitting down on an Indian position with her ears wide open.
‘’You see, it was 34 years ago’’ she laughed, how did she remember so well? ‘’1953. I was traveling up and down all around the world with my parents. I was only 19 then, I was just starting to live. We had all of the money in the world, my father was very wealthy. He won the lottery a year before and he decided he wanted to spend it on my mother and me, traveling. It was the brightest idea. I had never been out of Chicago before. We were going to go to England first, and then Paris, and then Rome, Italy and Greece. I had plenty of clothing to pack before we left, you know..my father loved to spoil me with clothing and even though I never asked for anything he still loved to surprise me. I was daddy’s girl, just like you’’ she said and held Lucy’s hand.
‘’Keep going!’’ she rushed and Aeofie laughed.
‘’Well, when we first got to London, it was totally different from what I had seen. All of the towers and the buildings seemed wonderful to me. We were staying at a very fancy hotel in London, the fanciest then. I had my own room and one night, when I was getting ready to go out with my parents. I was just out of the shower when someone knocked the door.
‘Who is it?’ I asked, and it was room service, they were delivering the soap they hadn’t put in my sink yet. I was very mad because they didn’t have any soap. I mean, what kind of hotel doesn’t have soap in the bathroom? I was wrapped in a towel and I had the gut to open the door for the man that had knocked three times already. I hung my head behind the door, I still had some dignity!’’ she said and Lucy laughed.
‘’‘’Yes?’’ I said. He instantly smiled at me, and I was shocked with how handsome he was, Europeans were the most good looking men, they said. And they weren’t lying. ‘’I come here to deliver soap, someone was desperately asking for soap in this room. Was it your mother? She seems very crazy to be honest. It’s just soap…’’ he said bursting out in laughter while I kept still and serious behind the door. ‘’Well, you’re very rude. That was actually me, and its soap but I don’t like to be dirty!’’ I said. He laughed again and seemed embarrassed. ‘’I’m sorry ma’am. It won’t happen again, I’ll make sure you have your dear soap at all times.’’ He said, trying to keep his composure. ‘’Thank you, and if you excuse me now..I have to use the soap.’’ I said, I didn’t know it then, but I know how funny and stupid that sounded now. He might had made me a little bit nervous. I don’t really know what it was, I had never seen such a nice looking boy in my life.’’
Lucy kept quiet, like if she was being hypnotized, indeed she was. She loved love stories, but had never heard a real one. Aeofie coughed a little hard, and touched her heart. ‘’Are you OK Fify?’’ she asked. Aeofie nodded and kept going.
‘’After that, he excused himself and left, he stared at the ground and smiled. He did found my comment funny. I took my shower and later on met my parents at the lobby. We left for a food carnival that was going on down town. One of my parent’s really good friends were there, in London as well. We were meeting up with them, I thought it wasn’t a bad idea at all. After all, the couple’s daughter was a very good friend of mine. Anastasia Feedle, she was the prettiest girl I’ve ever known, also a pretty fun young girl. She always wore her hair down, because boys used to tell her how beautiful her long, straight and shiny hair was. Who knows what’s been of her, I never heard about her afterwards.’’
They walked around the house, spent the whole day speaking about the story, it was long, but Lucy was never bored. Who would’ve thought how good of a storyteller her grandmother was. After taking a sip of her favorite orange juice, Aeofie continued with the story.
‘’Down in the carnival my parents led me and Anastasia go out on our own path, Anastasia had her own group of friends, she introduced me to. I wouldn’t say her group of friends was bulgar, because they weren’t, they were all very nice people..but it was surprising for me to see the type of friends she had. They didn’t had fine clothing like my boring friendships and her’s had. They were fun, normal people..and I’ve wanted to meet people like that for so long. It was terrible, how my parents had won their money out of luck and suddenly decided to change their ways of thinking and dressing, and became so selfish and conceited because of the money. I always remembered where I came from, because it was never a bad place growing up. We had loads of fun, you see. Anyway, is it ever predictable that one of Anastasia’s friend or a friend was the boy of the soap?’’ she asked, Lucy jumped in excitement.
‘’NO WAY GRANDMA! That is so funny! What happened next?’’ she asked, changed her position and layed in the bed.
Aeofie laughed ‘’Well, they introduced us, and he smiled at me with the big grin he had the last time I saw him, his genuine smile. I was very embarrassed, only hoping he wouldn’t come out with a stupid comment about that afternoon in the hotel. He didn’t. ‘’Nice to meet you’’, he said and shook my hand and kissed it. Nobody had ever kissed my hand with such a beautiful look in the eyes. For some reason, there were some sparks flying around. ‘’You too,’’ I said, smiling back at him. ‘’Would you ride the ferris wheel with me?’’ he asked me, all of his’ and Anastasia’s friends were hooing and wooing on us. There was nothing more embarrassing than that. ‘’I was actually planning on riding the pumping cars, just now.’’ I said. What a stupid comment, I didn’t want to be the ‘hard to get’ girl at all, I just reacted that way. He simply grinned ignoring his friends laughing at his intent on getting me. ‘’Fine then, let’s go on the pumping cars,’’ he winked. Anastasia took me by the arm as we walked to the line for the game, him and his friends kept looking at us and whispering things to each other. ‘’He really likes you, don’t be a fool!’’ Anastasia whispered. I thought about it for a second, ‘’I am not being a fool Tash, I’m not good at this.’’ I said. Anastasia laughed, ‘’Well obviously not’’. She left, to hold her boyfriend’s hand, I stood there alone for a second, and before I thought about it again, Louis was already by my side. ‘’Which one are you riding?’’ he asked me eyeing the cars as a few people laughed bumping into each other. ‘’The blue one,’’ I said with a big smile. A little alarm rang, which was the warning for the people inside the cars to get out, as soon as they did, me and Louis ran to our cars. He smiled at me and said something with his lips. ‘’I’m gonna get you’’ I think his lips read. I laughed and nodded. The alarm rang and I started screaming, trying to get away from him, he was following me around the game. I was laughing so hard when we pumped. I pumped him a few times, he looked dizzy afterwards.’’ Aeofie laughed and so did Lucy.
‘’You did like him didn’t you?’ Lucy wiggled her eyebrows.
Aeofie laughed ‘’Oh dear, I did. He was very handsome.’’
‘’What did he look like?’’ Lucy asked.
‘’Like you, he had green eyes, and brown hair, a big beautiful smile just like yours.’’
‘’You can see it a little on the picture, but not too much’’ Lucy said, looking at the old picture.
‘’Here’s a picture of the two of us on the carnival, see..before coming inside the pumping cars.’’ Aeofie showed Lucy the picture, you couldn’t see their faces, but you could clearly see the lights of the carnival and the games, and both Aeofie and Louis making the line for the pumper cars.
‘’What happened next?’’ Lucy asked
‘’We had an accident. A lady was going to pump into me, and Louis drove through it so we wouldn’t crash, the result was three people hurt, with first level cuts, burns and bruises. It was quite funny actually, when we came outside the hospital we were both laughing of how stupid it actually was. We used to do that a lot, laugh..He asked me out after that. ‘’Would you like to go out again? To somewhere nice, nothing like this again. I promise.’’ He said to me. I felt taken back by his question, didn’t expect that at all, and so I agreed because my heart wanted to, because my heart felt like it, because if I didn’t..I know I would regret it as soon as I got home. ‘’I’ll pick you up after work, alright?’’ he said and I nodded with a big smile. ‘’It was nice meeting you, Aeofie.’’ He said. The last word, my name..he said it almost in a whisper looking through my eyes. Those green eyes I can’t ever forget.
