Pulse of Heroes (45 page)

“Better now?” he asked. Michelle nodded. “We
dove for pearls for many years. Elliot kept these ones because they
were the most perfect. We sold the others. Back then they didn’t
know how to grow them yet.” Haneul lifted the necklace and rubbed
it against his cheek. “If Elliot gives you a gift, he won’t take it
back. He held on to these for many years, and you would only hurt
his feelings.”

“Hmm.” Michelle was bitter. Haneul ignored
her frown and showed her that he was wearing a similar pearl
earring on the top part of his ear. “We had to go through thousands
of oysters to find just a few. I wear this one for luck. And
memory.”

“Good memory, I hope?” Michelle didn’t have
the heart to be mad at him too. Haneul’s face broke out into a wide
smile and he told her in an excited voice about how he, Elliot, and
Mikoto had gone diving for the rare black pearls in the Tahitian
sea. He told her that at first they did it out of boredom, for a
sport, but that they eventually made lots of money.

Ando must have heard Haneul talking and
peeked his head around the corner just as Michelle was telling
Haneul that it was precisely those memories that forbade her from
keeping the necklace. They were Elliot’s memories, not hers. “I
have to go,” she said when she saw Ando, and she closed Haneul’s
hand around the pearls. “Thank you for cheering me up.”

Michelle walked out of the bedroom, looking
back one more time before descending the stairs. Would she ever
return to the same room and sit on that bed, gazing at Elliot’s
beauty while listening to all his amazing stories? Michelle
followed Ando towards the front door when Kahl called her name,
hurrying down the hallway. He smiled at her warmly and put his
hands on her shoulders. Michelle tried not to meet his eyes,
because his pity would only make her cry again.

“Michelle, you are a beautiful young woman.
It is very difficult for you to understand us, but trust me when I
tell you that Elliot is hurting too. I am very familiar with his
mind. You need to take the good memories you had with him and
treasure them. He is a difficult person to get close to, and you
were able to. You two had something. Elliot doesn’t want you to
waste your time on him, none of us do. We’ve all been there.” Ando
nodded in agreement.

Kahl continued, “It’s so hard to convince
humans that their time is so tragically short, especially when they
are young like you.” Michelle felt the tears gathering once again.
It was so uncomfortable having all of them know how she felt, let
alone the awful parting they had seen her have with Elliot. She
gritted her teeth together and held her composure.

“So I just stop? Forget him? And move on… I
don’t know how to do that Kahl. I haven’t had thousands of years of
practice like he has.” Michelle walked out the door.

“I’ll only be gone for two weeks,” Michelle
said, trying to sound positive over the noise of the buzzing fan.
Francesca explained to Michelle that she hung the wet towel in
front of it because it kept the air moist and helped keep the house
cooler. Francesca didn’t like to turn on the air conditioner. The
cold air gave her headaches, and besides it dried the skin.

“I don’t need any more wrinkles at my age,”
she joked. “Did you bring me photographs from your party?”
Francesca asked. That’s right. Michelle had promised that she would
bring some photos from the prom because Francesca was adamant about
seeing her in her pretty dress. But her sudden uneasiness showed
through and Francesca asked if she had gotten into a fight with her
date. Michelle nodded, but downplayed the events of the night.
Michelle told her that it was great and that they only fought at
the end. Unfortunately, that was why she didn’t have any photos
taken.

“Actually, there is one photo but it’s in my
mom’s camera. I forgot about it. I’m sorry.” Francesca told her
that maybe she could see it when Michelle got back from her
trip.

When Francesca had first heard about
Michelle’s trip to Hungary she said she was happy and excited for
her, but now her eyes were telling a different story. Michelle
waved her finger the way Francesca always did to her. “Are you
telling me the whole truth?” Michelle said, encouraging her to just
tell her what it was that was bothering her. Eventually, Francesca
whispered that she was just a little sad because Michelle would be
missing her birthday next week. Michelle felt bad, but of course
there wasn’t anything that could be done about it.

“It’s ok, it’s not really important. Just an
old lady turning older,” Francesca sighed.

“Why don’t we celebrate now instead?”
Michelle said standing up. “It doesn’t matter that we’re a few days
ahead, does it?” Francesca thought about that for a moment, and a
smile began to spread across her face.

“I guess it doesn’t. But what shall we do. We
have no plans?”

“Lets go to the ice cream parlor and get ice
cream cakes. It’s so hot anyway, it would be perfect,” Michelle
said smiling. Francesca’s eyes got their spark back and she got
herself ready to go in no time.

Michelle ordered one of the mini birthday
cakes and the man behind the counter was nice enough to bring it to
their table with four burning candles. Michelle began singing happy
birthday and everyone at the place joined her, including the little
children that were there with their parents. Francesca blew out the
candles and thanked everybody, especially Michelle.

“Did you make a wish?” Michelle asked her
once everything had quieted back down.

“Of course, dear,” Francesca answered,
leaning across the table to confide. “I asked God to let my Renzo
see how happy I’ve been now that we’ve been able to take his car
out and go places.”

Michelle wasn’t surprised that Toby couldn’t
find the time to join the family on the trip to Hungary, but that
didn’t stop her from feeling hurt and disappointed.

“It’s like he’s not even part of us anymore,”
she complained to her father.

“I didn’t realize you missed him so much,
Michelle?” he answered in surprise.

“I don’t. It’s just annoying that he starts
dating this girl and all of a sudden we don’t even exist.” Her
father reminded her that Toby did visit them for Thanksgiving but
Michelle rebuffed him, insisting that it was a short visit and
besides, all he wanted to do all weekend was hang out with his
girlfriend alone. Was she jealous? Michelle wondered if she was
perhaps envious that Toby had someone and she was all by
herself?

“Maybe we should have more children Ron,”
Michelle’s mother said as she walked in on the conversation.
Michelle looked at her mom, completely disturbed.

“You’re kidding, right?” she said in disgust.
But her father took the bait and stood up from his armchair,
hooking his arm around her mother’s waist.

“No, we’re not kidding. We’ve already
discussed it. It’s not like we haven’t noticed you moping around.
Maybe a new baby in the house will help brighten all our lives.”
Michelle looked at her parents in revulsion.

“Gross!” she yelled at them. “I don’t want
some poopy-diaper baby running around, and besides you’re too
old.”

“Oh?” her mother replied, injured. “I have a
friend who just got pregnant for the first time and she’s
forty-two.” Michelle looked at her mom. She still looked like she
was in her thirties. But the image of her parents actually doing it
made her ill, so she got up and told them that she was going
upstairs to barf, after which her parents looked at one another and
began laughing hysterically.

Did she really look that miserable? For the
first few days after the prom she had held herself together because
she was determined not to shed one more tear over that jerk. She
should have never gotten close to him after the first time he took
off; that was her mistake. If he didn’t see anything wrong in just
leaving without saying a word to her, then there was no way that he
even remembered her anymore, and he was probably somewhere far away
living his real life, the life that she had been distracting him
from. But things changed after Sam and James took off on a trip
together to go check out college campuses.

That evening Michelle sat in her backyard
just staring in the direction of
Hekademos
when, out of
nowhere, she burst out in wails. The wails turned to gasps, and
before she knew it she was vomiting into the downstairs toilet.
Throwing up made her cry even more because she was upset that
Elliot had now actually made her physically ill. She so wanted to
stop, but the more she tried to hold it in, the louder she got. She
wanted to scream and eventually she did just that, throwing herself
on the bed and beating her fists into her pillow. When at last she
ran out energy, she felt horrible about the things that had come
out of her mouth. She didn’t hate Elliot. She just hated being away
from him.

It was 4:15 AM and the Andrews family had to
be at the San Francisco airport at least three hours before their
departure. Michelle got dressed in a dream-like state. By the time
their car hit Highway 101 South, the sun was just barely peeking
through the eastern skyline. Michelle spread herself out in the
back seat and turned on her MP3 player. She couldn’t help but feel
sadder the further they drove from Willow’s Creek. She felt as if
she was moving further away from Elliot, and now the pain of
physical separation was sharpened. She’ll never see him again. What
if she loses even the memories? Can she remember his face? A tiny
tear rolled down her cheek. But then again, she was exhausted and
the sun was forcing its light underneath her shut eyelids.
Michelle’s mother hadn’t asked much about Elliot. The way she saw
it, Elliot was some guy that her daughter knew and was perhaps even
interested in, but since Michelle hadn’t mentioned Elliot once
before the prom, she didn’t think much of it when she didn’t
mention him afterwards.

Michelle had never been on a flight longer
than five hours, and even that was too long for her. This time they
were going to be in the air for over fourteen hours, but with the
stopovers in Chicago and Zurich the whole trip ended up being
closer to twenty! Michelle was definitely disturbed by the idea of
being locked up for that long in a small metal capsule high up in
the sky, let alone being stuck with her parents the whole time. By
the time the first leg of the trip was over her feet were already
swollen and her neck was sore, and to make matters even worse she
started her period on the plane.

The second leg of the trip was more
uplifting. The Swiss plane was much bigger and the smell of
chocolate emanated from the food stations and down the aisles. The
extra-friendly flight attendants served everybody hot cocoa and
butter cookies dipped in chocolate, of course. And then every meal
was followed by more… chocolate. Chocolate was the best drug that
God had invented, Michelle marveled, as she began feeling that
floating sensation one gets after eating the good stuff. She sipped
her cocoa happily; it put the one served at her school cafeteria to
shame. Looking around at the rest of the passengers, Michelle could
have sworn that they all looked like they were smiling as well. One
of her last thoughts before falling asleep was that it should be
mandatory to serve chocolate on all flights.

The plane landed in Budapest in the middle of
the night, but Michelle and her parents were just glad to be on the
ground. They were all worn out and obviously a bit punchy with one
another, but managed to make it to their overnight hotel which was
nice enough with its foreign décor. They were ready for a few good
hours of sleep before the drive out to Abony where Eranka
lived.

There weren’t too many people in line at the
beautifully displayed breakfast buffet. Michelle was up early and
felt a little strange being in a foreign country without her
parents by her side, but they still were sound asleep. She surveyed
the food more closely. There were all the standards like eggs and
fruits, but a little farther down the table there was a vast array
of salamis and cured meats. What really caught Michelle’s eyes were
the pastry trays; dozens of different types, fresh and fluffy,
stacked up on top of each other. Michelle could tell that they were
awesome just by looking at them. She wanted to sink her teeth into
each and every one, but managed to choose just two, a chocolate
strudel and another one with sweet poppy seed filling oozing out of
its sides. Michelle found a comfortable corner table from which she
could observe all the comings and goings. Judging from the attire
of the few people there, it was obvious that the place was somewhat
of a business hotel. Most everyone was in a suit and carrying a
briefcase or laptop. Even the couple of women who were there wore
skirts and blouses that looked like work attire.