Chapter 14: Departure (part II)
****BROOKE
“Jenny wasn't there?”
“Jenny is from the commercial department. She works alongside Mr. Dimitri. She doesn't handle the commercials.”
“There are colleagues with much more experience than you.” she didn't miss anything, it was clear.
“You've already met my colleagues. Can you imagine them in the forest with horrible boots?”
My father frowned. “You're right, Lillibeth. This is how the world of advertising works. There is more appearance than substance. What do we know about how to set up a scenario? If Mr. Farrow chose our Brooke, it means he saw potential in us.”
“More than anything, he saw potential in the fact that I didn't wear high heels,” I observed. I didn't know how much I liked it.
“And what time will you finish? Who will take you home?” these were the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth questions. I counted them.
“I'll ask Malloy for a ride if he doesn't work the night shift. At sunset, I think we'll have to stop filming.”
The taxi turned the corner and suddenly slowed to a stop in front of the front door. I nodded to the driver and turned to hug my mother.
“Keep your cell phone close by,” he recommended for the millionth time.
“Mom.” I started laughing. “Looks like I'm leaving for Alaska.”
“The world of advertising is dangerous. God knows what happens on the sets with all these models.”
“Let's recover the leaves and insects.”
“Anyway, Mr. Farrow is used to being with bitches who never come down from their heels or their pedestal. If he looks out of place, he should immediately call a taxi and go home. And if he gives you more flowers, reject them, as you already did.”
“Mr. Farrow is not used to being with sluts. At most, he is used to dating rich women. So we can say I'm not in trouble.”
“This is the first time I've been happy to be in debt.” my father jokes, opening the taxi door for me. “Come on, go away before your mother gets the idea of asking any more questions.”
“Did you buy a jacket?”
“And that,” he murmured, pushing me into the cabin.
“Hi Dad, give Mattias a kiss for me.”
The taxi pulled away, passing between some abandoned rubbish bins along the narrow road and I turned to the back window, waving my hand in greeting.
We lived in a neighborhood on the outskirts of Downtown, where degradation almost seemed to be passed down from generation to generation. The entire block was inhabited by rented families who could not afford to buy a house in the city center or by the cousins of cousins of some families who had chosen this area of the city to sell stolen spare parts or smuggled weapons.
We had never been through unpleasant situations because it's not like all these illicit events happened in broad daylight and under people's noses, but all of this wasn't enough to reassure my mother.
Born and raised in the center, when she moved here with my father I didn't even remotely know that such opposite realities could coexist in the same city or that there was a contrast with the naive and idyllic idea I had of the world and people.
She opened her eyes suddenly and it was not a pleasant awakening. Her control over me, morbid and almost paranoid, was born precisely from the awareness that people could be despicable.
The fact that just a few days before a double murder had been committed, two kilometers from our house, made her paranoid.
The taxi climbed the hill, scrupulously following the signs that indicated the various dirt roads to be taken and diverting in front of all the traffic prohibition signs. They've increased in the last year, I noticed.
“Keep the change.” I waved to the driver.
Sergeant Malloy's base was built on a spur that overlooked one of the many clefts that bounded the valley, from which a dense network of maples and firs reached up to the bare peak.
It was easily identifiable because it was the only building present and with its brick walls it stood out against the grassy surface.
I spotted Mr. Farrow next to his Pick Up, sitting on a low log where the sun's rays couldn't penetrate the thick spruce branches.
She wore her hair up as always and the two chains around her neck that he never parted with. Two rings I had never seen before made their way onto her little finger and my ring finger.
Seeing him outside the agency had a strange effect on me. He seemed to finally be in his natural habitat, one with nature as if he were part of it. He was part of that category of men who were too handsome to be desired and, at the same time, too arrogant to be tolerated.
As soon as he felt the soles of my shoes slipping on the rocks, he turned around and greeted me, without returning my smile.
“Let's start,” he ordered, standing up.