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to leave Constantine a message because Constantine was taking a shower right now, and this phone call wasn‘t an emergency. Opal left his message. “Constantine, buddy, I hope you‘re not mad at me for going to the police and confessing to everything moments before Carlos Roman dropped the charges against us. I know I betrayed you, but my conscience was tormenting me. I know we should never have hurt that man, and you know that, too. I hope there are no hard feelings and we can continue to be friends because I love you very much and my life just wouldn‘t be the same without you. The gang feels the same way, but they were afraid to call you. Anyway, I‘ll see you later, man. I know you are coming back home around eight, and maybe we can talk. Love you. I‘ll see you tonight.” Opal hung up and then, he too got ready to go to work. His workday started at seven o‘clock in the morning from Monday through Friday, but he needed enough time to make some breakfast at home, so he wouldn‘t have to buy it on the go. Opal worked as a salesman at a car dealership. He was only twenty-three years old and he was going to the university to become a doctor, and since he made great money at the dealership, he was able to pay for his tuition.
One hour later, Constantine was on his way to Mr. Smiley‘s house. It occurred to him to stop at the grocery store about a mile from his house to buy a few groceries for Mr. Smiley, with the money that the Brady twins had given him, but had to loan to him at his request because he wouldn‘t accept such a colossal amount of money as a gift. He wanted to make Mr. Smiley a nice breakfast and get him several more groceries so that he would have enough food to eat for the remainder of this month. Mr. Smiley was running out of groceries, and Marlon wouldn‘t be able to go to the store and buy him more groceries, with Mr. Smiley‘s money, until the day after tomorrow because Marlon was in charge of that, but he was very busy, working all day, and Friday was his only day off. That job allowed the worker to choose his day off, and instead of choosing Saturday or Sunday, Marlon chose Friday. Friday was a very special weekday to him. Marlon was a computer technician just like Starr, except Marlon would work ten hours every day instead of eight. Of course, if someone‘s computer broke down outside Starr‘s working hours, Starr would race to that person‘s house and she would either fix their computer or she would get him or a new one, if her client preferred a new computer. Marlon was a specialized computer technician for a computer company, and he fixed the computers of the company and also the computers of some businessmen. He was a computer programmer, too, and he would even build two computers from scratch for the company every day. Constantine only spent one hour in the grocery store, but in that hour, he got Mr. Smiley seven hundred dollars in groceries, the most money he‘d ever spent on groceries in one month. He hadn‘t done that for himself. He adored Mr. Smiley just for giving him that extra job he needed, and boy did it show. One of the workers of the grocery store helped him accommodate all the groceries in his trunk and on the backseat of Constantine‘s van just so that Constantine could leave the store a lot quicker and get to work in time.
A half an hour later, at six o‘clock sharp, Constantine was ringing Mr. Smiley‘s bell. Mr. Smiley was already up, in the living room, watching a random TV show, just to wait for his assistant and be able to open the door right away. He drove his power chair up to the front door and opened the door for Constantine. “You are punctual, too. I like that.”
“I would‘ve arrived a little earlier, except I took an hour of my time to get you some groceries. I‘ll be right back. I‘m going to go get them and accommodate them in the pantry and in the refrigerator.”