Pulse of Heroes (13 page)

Michelle was so thrilled and excited that she
could feel the physical manifestations radiating warmth throughout
her body. When she got home she couldn’t remember anything that had
happened before or after the phone call. At dinnertime, she had no
appetite at all, and she escaped to her room as soon as she could.
She now had in her hand a piece of paper with Elliot’s home phone
number written on it. She held the piece of paper up against her
heart, as if hugging it was somehow hugging him. She couldn’t fall
asleep no matter how hard she tried, and eventually she was forced
to call Samantha to get a word or two of support. At first,
Samantha had no idea what Michelle was talking about, because not
only had she omitted certain details about her meeting with Elliot
behind the school wall, but Samantha hadn’t even seen Elliot to be
able to judge if Michelle’s excitement was warranted.

Michelle spent her whole weekend trying to
come up with a good reason to give her boss as to why she needed to
ride along on Tuesday’s afternoon deliveries. The best she could
come up with was a white lie about some school report. She knew
that that might get her in trouble, but in her mind everything was
justified. She wanted, she needed, to see him again. When Tuesday
finally rolled around, Michelle was worn out because she had
expended way too much energy in planning what to wear and what to
say to Elliot when and if she saw him. She had fallen asleep extra
late, and woken up extra early. By the time she left for school she
had tried on three different outfits that didn’t make the cut. She
eventually settled on a jumper type black cotton dress with a black
and beige fine lace long sleeve tunic underneath, black tights and
knee high taupe leather boots. When Samantha pulled up in front of
Michelle’s driveway she whistled at her. “Wow!” Samantha exclaimed,
“Look at you. I hope he’s worth it.”

“He is,” Michelle replied, and then secretly
crossed her fingers.

After helping Mr. Meyers pack the groceries
into cardboard boxes, Michelle hopped into the passenger seat of
the delivery van, closed the door, and immediately reached for her
compact mirror. She was putting on an extra layer of lip-gloss when
Mr. Meyers climbed in next to her and asked if she was ready. “You
look perfectly pretty,” he said to her, smiling. Mr. Meyers was the
markets’ owner’s son. He was a nice man in his 50s who had just
gotten his first grandchild, and had pictures of the baby hanging
from every possible space in the van. He told Michelle that he
enjoyed having someone ride along with him. Otherwise he would be
listening to talk radio and getting upset over the politics of the
country. Michelle made an effort to look interested in the
conversation, but her mind was racing 200 miles per hour and it
wasn’t about politics.

They made the smaller deliveries first,
because the one at #84 Argos Vela was going to take some time to
unload. Michelle met many of the clients that she had gotten to
know on the phone, and when they stopped by Mrs. Bianchetti’s
quaint little cottage, Michelle was surprised to see the elder lady
that she had met at the Christmas party at the mayor’s house.
Francesca recognized her immediately, and complimented her manners
on the telephone. She tried to invite both Michelle and Mr. Meyers
in for afternoon tea and cookies, but Mr. Meyers told her how busy
they were, and that they would have to pass on that great
opportunity. Before they left, Francesca held Michelle’s hands and
asked her to come back again. Michelle promised that she would.

The drive to #84 Argos Vela Way was one of
the longest that Michelle had ever been on in her life. When they
pulled up in front of the giant iron gates she just about panicked.
Mr. Meyers looked at her and asked if she was all right. “Just a
chill,” she answered. The massive gate opened automatically and
they drove in and parked. Mr. Meyers got out of the van and headed
to the front patio and up to the large beautifully carved wooden
door. Michelle was still seated in the van, unable to decide
whether she should step out and join him or stay put. She decided
to step out, and was surprised to learn that she was trembling from
excitement. She must stop that right away; how embarrassing, she
thought. By the time she shut the van door, Mr. Meyers was talking
to someone at the front door of the school. She heard more voices
coming from the right side around the building, and she leaned over
to see a group of young men playing basketball. She tried to focus
in on their faces to see if Elliot was there, but she didn’t see
him. She turned her attention back to Mr. Meyers. He was walking
back towards her with the guy from the front door. On closer
inspection, she recognized him from the mall. He had been there
with Xander, she was sure of it.

“Hi, I’m Kahl,” he said, stretching out his
hand. “We spoke on Friday, right?”

“Yes, we did. I am Michelle,” she said,
shaking his hand. Kahl had a smile that could melt the heart of an
ice queen. His white teeth lay perfectly in the middle of his
dimpled cheeks. He had dark skin, but of a shade that Michelle had
never seen before. His features were delicate and tranquil, his
eyes were a shade of gray, and they sparkled in the sunlight, a
sparkle similar to that of a freshly sharpened lead pencil.

Kahl led them through the front door of the
school to show them where the kitchen and pantry were located. They
walked down a long hallway. To the left, there was a door that
opened up to a large office where a heavyset table dominated most
of the room. But that was all that Michelle could see while
walking. They continued on, and the hallway led to a spacious room
with great high ceilings and exposed wood beams. The place didn’t
look like a school at all, Michelle thought. It was a huge living
room with three leather couches, two coffee-style tables and
several armchairs, including the one that was similar to the one
she saw in her dream. There were also many paintings hanging on the
walls; they looked like the real stuff but Michelle was no expert,
so they could have been reproductions. Other curious items were
displayed here and there. Some were obviously wall sculptures, but
the others, she couldn’t even begin to guess. Everything felt
expensive, museum expensive. Michelle wanted to ask Kahl where did
they get all these things, and why did they have such a living room
at a school to begin with? But she was there as a professional; she
had to represent.

There were double doors at the far end of the
living room that opened up to a classroom. The room was also large
and it had a blackboard. They didn’t even use that at her school,
Michelle thought. Instead of regular school desks, there was a
humongously long dark wooden table surrounded by at least 12
chairs. The walls parallel to the length of the table were covered
in beautiful frescos. Michelle wished her classrooms looked like
that, not the hospital/jail design that seemed to be the preferable
fashion at most schools these days.

Kahl led them back to the kitchen and pantry.
The kitchen was very large and warm in design, typical of
California wine-country style. It had a Tuscan ‘old-world’ feel to
it, and it looked like someone was already working on dinner. On
the right, there was a seating area with double glass doors that
led to an outdoors patio. The doors were wide open, and Michelle
could still hear the guys playing basketball outside. It smelled so
good in there. Michelle savored the scent of whatever was cooking
and couldn’t help but ask, “What is that?”

Kahl laughed. “Oh, that’s a goat stew I have
been working on. It’s not ready yet, it’s for tomorrow.” Michelle
was used to good cooking since her mother was an avid foody, but
she wondered where one went to get goat meat, and the spices were
ones that she could not recognize.

Kahl and Mr. Meyers headed back to the van to
stack up the boxes on the dolly while Michelle excused herself to
use the restroom. Kahl pointed to the bathroom door just outside
the kitchen, to the left under the stairs that led to the second
story rooms and balcony.

Michelle already felt wrong. She knew that
what she was about to do was called ‘snooping’, and she was ashamed
of even thinking about it. She had a couple of minutes because
there were plenty of boxes in the van, and they were going to have
to be stacked up carefully with the produce on top. As soon as she
heard Kahl and Mr. Meyers step outside, she stepped out of the
bathroom and began scanning the fascinating bits and pieces that
made up the living room decor. But Michelle made a couple of
mistakes in her assessment of the situation. Since she hadn’t seen
Xander's Thunderbird parked outside, she had assumed that Xander
was out, and since Elliot was nowhere to be seen, much to her
disappointment of course, he must be out with him. She also mistook
the quietness in the house to mean that she was the only one
there.

Michelle circulated the living room, picking
up books from the coffee tables. Some were in English, others were
in Italian, and some were in other languages that she had never
even seen before. She then began inspecting some of the artwork
hanging on the walls. Those were definitely oil paints, she
realized after carefully touching them. They were not those cheap
laser printed reproductions on canvases that were found everywhere.
So they liked old things, Michelle thought. Nothing wrong with
that, and considering that this was a private school, it should
come as no surprise if it happens to be a private school for the
wealthy. But what were they studying? Who were these so-called
students? Michelle knew that if she could find out something about
the students, it would answer a lot of questions that she had about
Elliot. They must have their files here, she thought, maybe in the
office? Michelle looked down the hallway in that direction but she
could already hear the straining wheels of the dollies rolling on
the asphalt driveway. She didn't have enough time.

Just then, her eyes settled on a small arched
niche with a beautiful vase displayed prominently. It couldn’t be,
she thought, as she moved closer to the niche. But it was. The
bottle was made out of the exact same blue green glass as the small
oval disk that she had kept from the broken ornament. It was about
three inches tall, beautiful and unusually shaped, with a small
base, long slender-body, tall neck, and a flared rim. Next to it
was an object that looked like a glass dropper of some sort. It had
a rounded midsection that looked like a bead, and was wrapped with
what seemed to be a thin gold wire.

Michelle wanted to compare it to the glass
disk she had at home, but how would she ever get it here? That
would be next to impossible. What were the chances that they would
ever let her in here again? She had a great idea. She took out her
cell phone from her pocket and focused the camera on the vase. She
looked back down the hall and saw daylight coming in as the front
door swung open. They were on their way.

Michelle had three seconds at most to snap
the photo and return to the bathroom area. Her index finger had
barely touched the button to snap the shutter when she instantly
felt a sharp pain in her wrist and saw her cell phone flying out of
her hand through the air and crashing on the tile floor, shattering
the viewscreen. She turned to look at her aching wrist, only to see
Elliot, his eyes blazing in anger, practically burning a hole
through her. He was gripping her wrist tightly. Michelle let out a
scream.

“What do you think you're doing?” Elliot
yelled straight in her face. Realizing he was still holding her by
the wrist, he let go and Michelle stumbled backwards. She was
terrified, not only because of the anger that Elliot displayed, but
also because she never even saw him coming towards her. It was like
he came out of thin air, materialized out of nothingness.

Michelle couldn't decide what was more
important; to tell Elliot that she was just taking an innocent
photo, or to ask him where the heck did he show up from. So she
just stood there in shock, unable to get one word out of her mouth.
She was clearly losing her mind. Elliot yelled again, “How dare you
come here and start snooping around?” Michelle tried to mutter that
she wasn't snooping and that she was there because of work, but he
interrupted her again, only this time it was to ask if her wrist
was okay because he saw that she was still clutching it.

“What?” Michelle said in complete disbelief.
She was beyond confused. One moment he was hurting her and
screaming in her face, and in the next he was asking her if she was
all right. She looked at him completely bewildered. Then there was
that smell again, the one she had sensed when she passed him by at
the mall, and when he helped her get back over the school wall. She
was finally able to recognize it. It was the smell of the sea, of
fresh sea mist, just like in her dream. All Michelle could do was
look at Elliot, her mouth wide open with awe.

It was obvious that Elliot didn’t feel
comfortable with the way she was looking at him, because he started
shifting his body and tried to look elsewhere, anywhere, just not
at Michelle.

Just then, Kahl and Mr. Meyers rushed into
the living room to see what all the commotion was about. When
Elliot saw Kahl he gave him a quick look, indicating the
seriousness of the situation. Kahl looked at Michelle with an
expression that read somewhere between inquiry and disappointment.
Mr. Meyers immediately asked Michelle if she was all right.

“No she's not all right,” Elliot said
accusingly. “She was snooping around, and...”

Michelle didn't let him finish his sentence,
and countered in a voice that ended up being a little too loud, “I
wasn't trying to do anything bad. I swear. I was just…” Michelle
looked at her cell phone lying on the floor.