Chapter 41
Cindy was in her condo, watching the seagulls and eating her frozen pasta dinner in her living room as a thick-aired night fell over the river and the swamplands to the west, when David leapt on her ever-swerving thought train. Wow, I forgot to tell David about Gerald. I’ll text him. Hope his girlfriend is cool with it. No complaints so far. Does he have a girlfriend in Raleigh?
Cindy got out her smartphone. She texted David:
Gerald finally started talking.
He said that he killed Dale in
self-defense. Can you believe
that? Three shots to the face.
That’s self-defense? Crazy, huh?
Hope all is going well. – Cindy
She flipped her flat-screen TV on to channel 8 at 8:59 PM. She liked to monitor the news teasers that were placed just before the nine and ten o’clock hours. She wondered if they were going to run hers. Sure enough, they did. It was about street-flooding issues near Greenfield Park. My cheeks look too pink. I overdid it with the blush. Darn it!
Cindy was very critical of her on-camera appearance; she always thought that she could look better on screen. The curse of the pretty female.
At 9:05 PM, while listening to some tracks by the Pinoy wunderkind, Blackbird Blackbird, on YouTube, she heard her phone chirp. It was a text from David, which read:
Thanks for the update!
Yeah, Gerald’s going to
hang himself with that
story. Oh, where should
I mail your gift? – David
Cindy read his text twice. Then she thought about the best address. Even though she had already met David, and even though she had a growing crush on him, she knew that she must be careful. She texted him back her PO Box number.
She looked at the Memorial Bridge lights and thought about asking him what he was doing on Saturday. But after typing out the text, she just couldn’t hit the Send key. That would be too forward. It would be like I’m asking him out. I know some American women do that, but I’m just not comfortable doing it. Well, not yet. Maybe it’s just better to text each other about Dale Smite’s murder and the supposed treasure in his back yard. Just let things evolve naturally; don’t try to accelerate anything. I bet the mystery gift is a piece of that treasure trove. I can’t wait to open that package when it arrives.
She switched to a playlist by Natural Calamity. There was a star twinkling by itself in the western sky. Will anyone in my family see that lonely star in three hours? I wonder how they are doing in Daly City. Gosh, I haven’t called them in two weeks.
She gave her mom a call. They were all doing ok. No big news. Her dad sounded a little weaker. I wish he’d stop smoking!
After she hung up, she found the Dive album by Tycho on a YouTube playlist. It got her mind going. What a strange life this is. Almost feels like we’re the entertainment for some alien civilization. We’re all probably already on some higher life form’s monitors. Earth is not even worthy of a takeover. Wow, I may have a science-fiction story here. I need to start writing these ideas down. Where’s that sharpened pencil?
She fell asleep on her Papasan chair with a yellow, no. 2 pencil in her left hand. She often crashed in the bowl-shaped chair. It felt like she was in some primordial egg. She felt safe and secure in the half-cocoon.
She soon drifted off into a dream. In the dream, there was a grayish asteroid headed towards Earth, and David’s face was on it! She was signaling to him. She didn’t want the Eiffel tower to stick him in the right eye. He was smiling back to her. The David-asteroid never impacted Earth. The scene strangely merged into a large, celestial, cereal bowl of stars. She was going to say, “Hey, I got your Milky Way” … but the scene shifted again. It was all black. And, it was all silent.