"Would you marry me,
Carla looked at Noah and
Frankie. They were looking at each other, gasping. Then, they looked back at Carla. "What do you think, Frankie? Should I go bungee jumping and risk my head?"
Frankie replied, still bewildered, "I've never seen anything like this. This is unbelievable."
Dean had the most beautiful smile on his face as his arm was still extended with the box in his hand and the ring in the box, waiting for a response.
Carla blurted out, still crying, "Dean, I don't know what to say."
"Please tell us that we've
been punk," said Noah, completely blown away, gasping and rolling his eyes.
"Taking you to bed when he's just met you is far worse, don't you think, Carla? I mean while any other man would've taken you to a hotel or take you home and have sex with you minutes after meeting you, this man's proposing," said Frankie, and Noah looked at her, awestruck. These women were incomprehensible to him. The better he got to know them, the less he understood them. They were fictional to him. He felt he was in a movie.
Carla smiled and said, "Yes, you're right, Frankie. What the hell?" and the guys laughed hysterically. Carla extended her hand and said, "Yes, Dean, I will marry you," and then laughed again with tears in her eyes. He slowly and delicately put the ring on her finger, and she got up and gave him a big hug. Although no one understood what was going on or why, everyone applauded and cheered. It was the most beautiful and strangest engagement they'd ever witnessed.
Four hours later, at twenty minutes 'til two, Carla went to the jewelry store. She didn't want to sell the ring because that would be betraying Dean. She just wanted to know if her diamond ring was real, how highly the diamond ranked, and how valuable it was. She wanted to know how much Dean had paid for this. Eventually, she'd find out who it was originally for and confront the woman that broke his heart by showing off the ring to her, unleashing her anger and then laughing at her face. She went in and closed the door. She walked to the desk. The jeweler was giving her his back, accidentally. "Excuse me," she said to him, smiling.
He turned around, smiled, walked closer to the desk, being only a few steps from her. He looked her in the eyes and asked, very sweetly, "How may I help you?"
Carla placed her hands on the desk, extended them and showed him the beautiful ring. He gasped immediately when he saw it. He couldn't lift his head to look at her again. All of his attention belonged to the ring. He was astonished. However, she went on to speak her mind. "I'd like to know if this diamond on my ring is real. It's my engagement ring, and I got engaged a few hours ago, to a man that's literally a doll, so it's very important to me."
The jeweler said, still flabbergasted, "There's no question," and took her hand. "All that you have to do is look closely at the ring. This diamond is incredibly beautiful and irrefutably authentic. It is the second most valuable diamond in the world."
Carla gasped and then opened up a smile and asked, "How much did my fiancé pay for this ring?"
"I don't know how long ago he bought it, but if he were to buy it now, right here, we'd charge him $8,500."
Carla opened her eyes very wide and said, "Oh, my God! Would you pay $8,500 for it? I mean I'm not going to sell it, ever, but do you think that is really how much it costs, whether it's sold or bought?"
"Yes, that's correct." "I've got to be dreaming,"
said Carla, smiling and put her hands down. "Ok, that's all I wanted. Thank you very much." Carla turned around and walked away. When she was about to leave, he said, "Wait!" he wanted to sell something.
Another client went in and waited to be attended to.
Carla turned around once again, walked back to the desk and said, "Yes," smiling.
Smiling, the jeweler asked, "Wouldn't you like to reward your fiancé for this $8,500- ring with our precious jewelry?
Your love is very valuable, you know, as valuable as the ring is."
The other female client looked at Carla with a smile on her face. "You just got engaged with an
$8,500 ring? Congratulations!" Carla smiled and said, "Yes, but whatever I buy can't be as expensive as this ring."
"I understand," replied the jeweler. "You're not rich like your fiancé."
"This ring is so beautiful that if the lights went out, it would light up the whole jewelry store," said Carla, smiling, and with tears going down her eyes.
"That's right," said the jeweler, smiling.
"Therefore, I'd like to give Dean a gold watch. I'd love it for it to be gold and diamonds, but I don't have that kind of money with me right now."
"Gold watch," said the jeweler and pulled out his most beautiful gold watches. "We have a wide selection." The jeweler stood there with a smile on his beautiful face, observing the movement of Carla's eyes, how she bit her lips as she looked at the watches, and how she rubbed her hands together. He liked that. She was definitely going to buy a watch. He was going to sell today; sell big, thus other people were also observing Carla as they went in, and if she bought a watch, the other customers would surely buy some jewelry. The jeweler never thought that a customer helped his sales every time he or she bought jewelry from him, but surprisingly, it was true, and he was learning it today. He had no idea that because of Carla, he would sell two thousand pieces of jewelry today, and that he'd go back home so tired that instead of going out with the boys, he'd put some pajamas on and go to sleep immediately. Carla was helping a marriage, too. One night that this husband didn't go out would be a miracle for his wife, and in the long run, the time would come that she wouldn't doubt the fidelity and the love of her husband to her ever again. Carla had no idea that she was helping a husband and a wife stay together for the rest of their lives. Eventually, the husband would stop going out for the next few nights, and if he went out, he'd take his wife with him, and there would be no divorce; thus this was the only problem in their marriage. Carla looked at a gold and diamond watch that hadn't been pulled out yet. All of the customers that were behind her prayed that she wouldn't buy any of the watches that were on display because the amount of watches that there were, was the exact amount of customers waiting, and the customers wanted those watches and other pieces of jewelry. All of these people were either rich or well-living middle class people. Carla made her decision. She'd buy the gold and diamond watch, but it'd have to wait at least a half an hour. "Do you know what?" she said. "I'm going to buy that gold and diamond 'Rolex' watch down there."
The jeweler looked at the watch she'd just chosen, astounded. "Well," he said.
"I don't have the money in my pocket or in my purse right now, but I do have it in my bank account. I'm not rich, I've just been piling up money for at least ten years, and luckily, not all of my piled-up money would have to be spent on the watch because I have the money for the watch and much, much more."
The other customers looked at one another. One of them whispered in the ear of the one that was next to him, "I'm amazed that she trusts us enough to say that in front of us!" The other man nodded in agreement. "Not everyone does that," the first man whispered.
"Well then," said the jeweler, even more enthusiastic, and pulled out the watch, so that her beautiful green eyes would enjoy its preciousness even more, "let's get on it. As you know, this watch is $20,500."
The other customers weren't close to Carla and the jeweler enough to see the price of the watch. They gasped and looked at each other when they heard the price of the watch from the jeweler. Some of them laughed out of ardent and passionate envy. They wish that they had at least half of that at their disposition to buy more pieces of jewelry than they would buy today. "That's not a problem," said Carla, and then she pulled the man by the head and whispered in his ear, "I have twenty times that amount in the bank."
The jeweler smiled evilly and whispered, "But you said you weren't rich."
"I'm not," she said. "I only consider people that have over one million dollars to be rich."
"That's true," said the jeweler. "So you're sure you want this white gold and diamond 'Rolex' watch."
"I'm positive," said Carla, pulled her purse off of her shoulder, opened it, and pulled out her checkbook, which had one carbon copy for each check. Then, she placed it on the table and opened it. She had a pen in her purse but it would take her a few minutes to reach down and find it, so the jeweler gave her a pen that was among other pens at the desk, and she filled out the check and wrote, 'twenty-thousand five hundred and zero dollars' in the dollar amount space, signed it, and tore it off and gave it to the jeweler. The jeweler pulled out the box of the watch, a beautiful and elegant white box, placed the watch inside of it very carefully, closed it, gave it to Carla, and said to her, "Thank you so much, Ms. Smiley, for buying this beautiful watch that I thought I'd only sell to a rich person," said the jeweler, smiling. "By the way, you have a very peculiar name."
"Yes, I do, don't I?" she said, and took the watch and put it in her purse, way at the bottom, and placed the purse back on her shoulder, "but it's going to change very soon," and laughed. She was ecstatic.
"Congratulations on your engagement," said the jeweler.
Carla turned around, walked away from the desk, opened the door, walked out, turned around and waved goodbye, and then walked away, with the door closing behind her. The other customers ran to the jeweler's desk and by the dozens, they took out the watches out of the rack and gave in their checks and money orders to the jeweler, leaving him literally breathless. Without hesitation, the people took the boxes that the watches came in and put them in their purses or in the pockets of their jackets and their pants. After displaying a face of total shock for at least twenty minutes, the jeweler said, "Well, thank you for your business, ladies and gentlemen," and took in the checks and money orders.
On her way to work, Carla dialed Dean's mobile number on her cellular phone and then put on the headset and the little microphone was in front of her mouth. The phone rang three times while Noah and Dean were at Noah's house, looking at Noah's things in his bedroom, and Dean pulled it out of his pocket, lifted the earpiece, put it on his ear and said, "Hello."
Smiling, Carla said, "Hi, sweetie. Listen, it is twelve twenty, and I am going to work at two, from two to ten, and I wanted to give you a surprise that I have for you before going to work. Are you at home?"
"No, actually, I'm at
Noah's."
"Listen, I'm going to pull
over, and you're going to dictate the address to me, and I'm going to write it down, ok?" Ten minutes later, Carla did as she said. She pulled over just one mile away from a popular but independent
fast-food restaurant, got her purse from the passenger's seat, let go of the wheel, put her hand in to search for her address book, and found it in a matter of seconds. Then she opened it, pulled out her pen, and flipped the pages until she found a new page. "Ok," she said to Dean, "give me the address. I'm ready to write it down."
Dean dictated Noah's home address slowly to Carla and Carla wrote it down. Fortunately, the address book was a size four by five and all addresses and phone number fit in the appropriate spaces without a problem. "Got it?"
As Carla put the pen cap back on the pen and closed the address book, she said, "Yes, I got it. Thanks," and put the address book back in the purse and accommodated the purse in the passenger's seat once again. Just when a thief was walking closer and closer to her car, behind her, she saw him from the visor, started the engine once again, and sped away. She was ten miles away by the time that the thief arrived to the place that the car was parked in, on the grass.
"Damn!" he yelled, angrily. "I could've robbed that bitch and she saw me before I got to her and ran away!" Chapter 10
It was twenty minutes past noon. Nicole was eating her lunch, spaghetti and meatballs with a ranch salad and garlic bread sticks on the side, and a twelve-ounce can of 'Minute Maid' lemonade to drink. She'd already eaten half of the spaghetti. She took a few sips of her lemonade as she watched a soap opera on her nineteen-inch color TV, which had cable that made the channels look crisp and clear, and all of a sudden, someone knocked on the door in a very original and peculiar manner. She put the can on her table, looked at the door, and said, smiling, "Come on in, Noah," and laughed, and wrapped some more spaghetti on her fork, put it in her mouth, and chewed on it very slowly.
Noah opened the door and he and Dean walked in, with smiles on their faces. Dean was behind Noah. Noah had a bouquet of sunflowers in his hands. He put it on the nightstand on the left side of Nicole's bed. Nicole smiled sweetly at him. They hugged. Dean stood beside Noah, smiling. "Nicole, I want to introduce my best friend, Dean Sterling. Dean, this is Nicole Perry."
The guys shook hands and then hugged. "How are you doing, Nicole? How are you feeling?" he said, smiling.
"I'm feeling much better, Dean, thank you. I see that you know about my accident," she responded, smiling back.
"Oh, boy, Noah's been talking about you since we reunited after nine years, so I asked him to bring me over so that I could meet you and see the woman he described to me as beautiful and sweet."
Nicole shed tears of happiness, with a bright smile on her face. She looked down and wiped them away with her hands, and then looked to her left side back at the guys and said, "Thank you for telling him these beautiful things about me, Noah! You're so sweet! I love you!" and gave him another hug. As she let go, she said, "By the way, how did you know that sunflowers were my favorite flowers?"
Astounded, Noah looked back at Dean. Dean smiled at him and he looked back at Nicole and said, "I didn't know. I brought them to you because they reminded me of you."
Dean smiled sweetly and said, loudly, "Aw, how nice!"
Nicole smiled and said, as she held Noah, "You know, Dean, this is one of many reasons why I fell in love with him the moment I met him because he's so romantic and sweet. He's the man I've always dreamed of."
Noah looked at her and asked, "Really?"
She replied, "Yes. The man that I've always dreamed of, always, all of my life, looked, spoke, acted, and laughed exactly like you. That's why I won't stop until I make you fall in love with me."
Dean said, "Wow, you guys get sweeter by the minute!"
Carla arrived at Noah's house. The gates opened and she parked her car right in front of the entrance, right behind Natasha's. She took off her seatbelt, pulled her purse by the string, put it on her shoulder once again, and got out of the car. She then closed the door and locked it with her remote control key. She slowly walked up the entrance stairs, walked to the entrance door, and rang the bell.
Geisha was cleaning the cherry- oak-wood tables of the guests' living room with some orange- fragrance 'Pledge' wood cleaner. She stopped, put the cleaner can down and walked to the door and answered it. She smiled when she saw Carla. Carla smiled back. "Hello, this is the Spears residence. What can I do for you?"
Carla said, "Hi. It's a pleasure to meet you," and extended her hand, and Geisha shook her hand. "I'm Carla Smiley."
Geisha smiled when she heard Carla's last name and said, "Oh."
Carla went on to say, "I'm looking for Mr. Noah Spears and Mr. Dean Sterling. Are they here?"
"No, they're not, but they're at the General Hospital, visiting Ms. Nicole, the little sister of Noah's mother in law," explained Geisha.
"Do you happen to know Ms. Nicole's room number by any chance?"
Geisha pulled out of her pocket a piece of notebook paper that had Nicole's name and her hospital room number written on it, that she'd found in the family living room, on top of the entertainment center, right above the fifty-inch flat panel TV, and gave it to Carla. "That's it," she said."
Carla put the piece of paper in the pocket of her leather hip hugger pants and said, smiling, "Thank you. I may be returning here with the guys later on, and hopefully, you and I can get to know each other a little better."
Smiling, Geisha said, "Oh, it'll be my pleasure, Ms. Smiley."
"I'll see you later," said Carla, and then turned around, walked a few steps and went back down the entrance stairs. Geisha closed the door, went back to the table and continued to clean it.
Carla went to her car, unlocked the door with her keyless entry remote, opened it, got in, closed it, put her seatbelt back on, and started the car. She turned around to her right side, and the gates opened for her. She drove out the gates, turned to the left, took the road, and sped away.
Lily, Rob's girlfriend, and the woman that alleged that she'd had an illegitimate child with Noah, parked her car right in front of the real estate brokers' building that Rob worked at. She turned off the engine, took off her seatbelt, took her purse, put it on her shoulder, got out of the car, and closed the door. Then, she locked the door with her key. She walked to the entrance, opened the door, and walked into the lobby. She walked straight to Rob's office several steps away from the entrance, down the hallway, without even announcing herself. She arrived at Rob's office and opened the door, without knocking, and walked in. She said, "Hi, Rob," and closed the door, walked to the chair in front of Rob's desk and sat down, and crossed her legs, put her hands together and made herself comfortable.
"What are you doing in here, Lily?" said Rob, looking down as he signed a document of the closing of a house he'd sold three weeks before.
Stunned and angry because Rob wasn't giving her any of his attention, Lily yelled, "I came to talk to you! Look at me! Look in my eyes as I talk to you!"
"What if I don't want to look at you?" he replied, still reading the document, just to keep his head looking down and away from her.
"If you don't want to look at me as I'm talking to you, and you want to be impolite, that's fine. I came to talk to you about mine and Noah's son. I know that Noah's not going to take responsibility or give the child his last name because he's illegitimate, so I want you to adopt him."
Rob finally looked up at her, and she smiled, and she said, "Are you crazy?"
Her smile disappeared instantly and angry, she said, "You're rejecting the son of the woman you love?"
"I stopped loving you the minute that Noah denied ever cheating on his wife with you.
You're a lying," he said as he walked around the desk and closer to her, "and manipulative bitch! It's your word against Noah Spears'! If he denies his affair with you, how can I ever trust you?"
"Noah denies it because he doesn't want anyone to know!" she yelled.
"No!" Rob yelled at the top of his lungs. "He denies it because it's not true! I looked in his crying eyes and I saw that he was telling me the truth. He even swore to me by his children, which he loves the most in this whole world, that you were telling lies!"
"Noah's a great actor," said Lily, as if she'd known him well enough. "He'd swear by anything, and lie, so that Scott doesn't ever find out that he had an illegitimate child with me."
Rob walked to the door, opened it and said, "Get out, Lily," as he held the door open and looked her in the eyes with profound hate. "I don't want to talk to you."
"We're going to get married, Rob," she said as she ran to him and held him, and cried bitterly in his arms. "I need you to adopt my son."
He pulled her away from him and said, "No, Lily, we're not going to get married. The wedding's off."
She looked him in the eyes, shedding bitter tears, and with the saddest face she'd ever shown. "You're calling off the wedding."
"Yes, I am," he responded. "I can't marry a woman I don't trust."
She added, as she punched him on the chest and on the stomach repeatedly, "All because of Noah Spears!"
He pushed her away so roughly that she fell into the chair and injured her back and the back of her neck as she fell on the floor. She looked at him, gasping, and breathing heavily. He walked back to the desk, walked in front of his chair to the phone, picked up the receiver and said, "I swear to God that if you don't get out right now," crying, "I'm going to call the police and report you for assault!"
With great difficulty, she got up, looked in his eyes for one last time, walked to the door, opened it, and got out. From this moment on, walking was very difficult for her. The voice of Rob's conscience told him, silently, as no one but Rob heard it, "Report her," and Rob gasped. "If you don't report her, she'll make you and the Spears family's lives a living hell! Report her!" Rob hung up the phone and lifted it once again, put it in his ear, and dialed the number to the police station. Officer Blake was reading the documentation of the case of a murder victim as he drank his coffee, at his desk, and the phone rang all of a sudden. He put the cup of coffee and the documents down and picked up the phone. "Police, this is Officer Luis Blake, how can I help you?" and took the cup of coffee once again, put it in his mouth and took three more sips.
"This is Robert Alan Perry. I'd like to report Ms. Lily Baker for assault."
"You're calling from your office, correct?" said Officer Blake, looking at Rob's office number on his caller ID.
"Yes."
"And this happened in your office, correct?"
"Yes, it happened right here in my office less than five minutes ago."
"Tell me what happened." "She came into my office
without even announcing herself and without knocking. I disliked her visit and we started arguing. All of a sudden, the conflict became physical, and she started punching me in the chest and on the stomach, with all of her strength. I'm still having difficulty breathing."
"Is she at work or at home right now?" the officer said, with a yellow notepad in front of him, and his right hand with a blue-ink pen on top of it, ready to write down Rob's information.
"She came from work on her lunch break, but she's very upset because I called off our wedding, so she must've gone back home."
"Give me her home address."
Rob dictated Lily's address to Officer Blake as he wrote it down. "Do you need directions to her house?" said Rob. "I'd gladly give them to you."
"I'm sure I can get there just fine, Mr. Perry," said Officer Blake and put the pen down. "Thank you so much for your cooperation and your kindness."
Smiling, but breathing with great difficulty, Rob said, "There's no problem."
Officer hung up and called 911. He knew that Rob would not recover from this attack on his own, and that the damage done to him was more serious than Rob ever imagined. Lily was a very strong woman. She weight lifted regularly to keep her arms and shoulders from getting fat. She'd punched out a woman five years before and dislocated her jaw, and this poor woman was still having operations on her jaw to put it back in place. When Lily attacked people, she didn't realize how badly she hurt them physically, and thinking that Lily was a dangerous woman, the people that she'd harmed never dared to call the police on her, but all of that stopped for her the minute that she attacked Rob. Ten minutes later, the ambulance, the police, and the firefighters were in front of the realtors' building. The secretaries on the front desk became frightened. Rob's secretary, Susan, she knew what had happened because she'd heard Rob and Lily's conversation, and she was locked in her office. She didn't want Rob to know that she'd been a witness to everything that had just happened because he'd beg her to testify in a trial, and she wanted a chance to decide what she was going to do. She'd never been in a courtroom before, neither as a plaintiff, as a defendant, nor as a witness, and she was frightened. She was going to testify right now so that the police knew that Rob was not a liar and that he'd not inflicted this damage on to himself to do harm to Lily.
She wanted to put Lily in jail because Lily was dangerous, and she could do anything to anyone. Lily was capable of killing. She had no doubts in her mind about that, thus Lily had doused her best friend's face with acid. Someone who has attacked someone else with acid was capable of the most horrible things. She hoped there would be a way to give her version of what happened to the police anonymously. That way, Rob wouldn't know that she was a witness, until the final moments of the trial against Lily for assault against Rob. If everything went the way that Greta wanted to, Greta would tell the judge about Lily's attack on her best friend, and many other things about Lily that no one knew about; not even Lily's best friends. None of Lily's best friends knew about the horrible things that Lily had done because she never told them about those things. She knew that any one of her best friends would betray her for a thousand different reasons; go to the police and tell them, and she didn't want to give anyone the chance to do that. Lily wanted to get away with her crimes and then take them to her grave, like any other criminal in the world would do. Lily would rather be dead than in jail. Greta was waiting for Rob to go, in order to go to the police and render her testimony, so that Lily would be locked up before the day of today ended. Just twenty minutes later, she heard the ambulance leave, but the police officers were still there, interviewing the other secretaries and the other real estate agents to know if they'd seen or heard anything, but none of them knew anything of what happened. All that they'd heard were crazy screams, and that was it. Those crazy screams weren't enough to put anyone in jail, but Greta felt it was finally time to take action, and she was ready to give in the goods; give in what the police wanted and what no one else but she and Rob had, the information. Rob's word was not enough to incriminate Greta; thus he accused her for a plethora of possible reasons and the police were intelligent enough to know that, but Greta was ready to give her word, and after her report to the police, Greta would very difficultly get out of this profound black whole. Noticeably frightened, Greta went out to the lobby. She was stumbling, as if she had a physical disability, and she was having a hard time walking straight. She was breathing heavily and holding her chest with her right hand. It seemed to the police officers that she'd been attacked, too, and they gasped when they saw her. Immediately, Officer Lewis ran up to her and put his arm around her chest, supporting her. He walked a few steps with her, slowly, and then helped her sit on one of the chairs and sat beside her.
"Are you all right, ma'am?" he said.
"No," said Greta. "I am anything but all right," and gave away a few more sighs.
"Why? Were you attacked
also?"
"No, I wasn't attacked; it's
just that I was afraid."
"What were you afraid of?" he said, caressing her hair, hoping to make her feel better.
"I was afraid of Lily." "But she didn't even
approach you."
"Not directly," Greta replied, looking in his eyes and then looked down.
Officer Lewis was astonished with that remark. He lifted her face and turned it to make her look at him once again, very closely. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that there are a lot of things about Lily that you and her latest victim don't have the slightest clue about, and I will tell you everything, but very slowly. You're going to have to bear with me."
"Sure, let's forget about everything else and focus on the latest victim, as you very well said, Robert Perry. What happened between them?"
"Well," said Greta and stayed silent for a few minutes, "she went into his office and told him he had to adopt a son that she'd had with..." she'd heard Noah Spears' name, but she felt it wasn't in her place to tell the police about the alleged illegitimate son of his. She'd surely get in trouble if she told his name, as if being in trouble with Lily weren't enough, "someone that he knew, a friend of his."
Lewis nodded and said, "Ok, continue," as he wrote everything down on his white notepad.
"He said that he wouldn't adopt him," she said. To avoid any problems at all, she didn't even tell Officer Lewis that the man that Lily said was her child's father was married, "because his friend had told him that he'd never had sex with her and that there was no way that the child could be his." The truth was never figured out, and it never would be. The information about Lily's child was too abstract for the police to get the truth out of it, the truth about Lily's allegations.
"Ok, good," said Lewis as he continued writing, as quickly, yet as legibly as he could. "What happened next?"
"It was then when the conflict and the argument turned into a fight, when it got physical. She started punching him so hard that he screamed in between strong gulps, and the noises he made were just the noises that someone makes while he or she's stabbed or just punched repeatedly."
"Uh huh!" said Officer Lewis as he finished writing down. "Are there any other details on how you knew that Rob had been punched in the chest and the stomach repeatedly?"