Fuensalida

Chapter 14

Her first thoughts were how dreary the house appeared on the perfect orange and purple hues of the sky. The sun, setting to the west, almost just behind the horizon, outlining the house, seemed to make it look almost sickened. It was not that the house was not in pristine condition, and in fact had only been lived in once by a couple for five years, who were divorcing and selling off their dream home. It was a matter of their taste in colors. The house was, for lack of a better word, gray. Gray siding, gray shingles, gray fence, and as the women were dreading, gray walls, gray carpeting, and a sickly gray tile that they supposed was meant to look like marble but looked instead like wet cement.

Celeste had to bite her tongue. She could see in the set of his shoulders Chris was already in a mood that would have him threatening to steal them all away again, dragging her halfway across the country again until he calmed down.

She did not exactly know what had set him off in his current mood. She had slept most of the car ride and could only assume that something her mother had said had driven him over that small edge from jovial to angry.

Her mother had already been prickly from the start of the final drag of their trip. First Chris had insisted Celeste take the passenger seat, where she had played the part of crabby spoiled princess and sang the “Pig” song about Chris. He had laughed and ignored her while her mother scolded her about being childish. Celeste noticed her mother already lived in constant fear and desire for the man who had taken them, while Celeste should have known better, and did, and chose not to listen to that nagging voice that sounded suspiciously like her mother.

Second had been at the McDonalds they had stopped in for lunch. Celeste, for once not worrying over what she ate, and even going inside without complaint instead of insisting they just continued on with their trip. She ordered large fries, smothered them in ketchup, and in the midst of conversation had shaken a fry right out of her hand and into Chris’s hair. Slightly bemused with her he gripped a mustard packet and squeezed, splattering most of it onto her cheek. Shocked and appalled, mostly an act, she gripped her drink, took a drink through the straw, held it and spit Diet Coke onto him. They were thrown out of the McDonalds shortly thereafter and had to drive along to the next stop to clean up.

They had enjoyed it immensely, and laughed about it for a while, meanwhile Cassandra had nearly pouted because she was being left out. Then turned around and called them childish for their behavior, which had only caused them to laugh.

Celeste had felt good, she had felt giddy, she was so close to a new home, a new life. On a rush of giddiness and on the downers of the cheeseburger and the fries, she curled up in the seat and fell asleep with her face pressed into the passenger window. When she awoke, hazily, pulling herself from a the depths of sleep so deep she did not even realize she had been asleep for quite so long the atmosphere had completely changed. It was like a cartoon, she could almost see the anger pouring off of Chris and the sullenness from her mother. She sat up slowly, checking for drool, and did not say a word. Chris tried for good natured, to ask her how she slept and it seemed clipped and she could only say, “Fine,” in return.

“The colors aren’t to everyone’s tastes,” Mr. Taylor, their realtor and apparent new friend, was saying as he lead the family through the house. What a sight they must have made, a mother closing in on forty, a “father” barely gracing thirty, and a daughter of sixteen… Oh wait, those were their real ages. Celeste ground her teeth and glanced up at Chris, he certainly didn’t look like the forty-year-old man he was pretending to be. “We can always have a few professionals come in and-”

“You probably should have done that before we were ready to move in,” Chris ground out impatiently. Celeste hung back, watching her mother who stuck close to her husband almost happily.

“Don’t mind him,” Cassie said in her perfectly coiffed manner, very much used to playing the part of pampered housewife to the rich man. “Honey, we haven’t even picked out the furniture yet, he could not very well paint it to our liking.”

Cassie shot a look back at Celeste. Celeste knew the look, “Act your part,” but she did not feel up to play acting. She felt sick watching the two of them.

Celeste moved passed them all and up the stairs to check out the bedrooms. She was in no way surprised to find more gray. Everything was gray. The bathroom was the only bit that wasn’t completely gray, the tiled floor was white and the sink, toilet, cabinets, and shower were all done in a bold black and white marble pattern. This was the only room Celeste enjoyed. The bathroom downstairs had been gray and white.

“This isn’t going to be your room.” Celeste turned to look up at Chris as he leaned against the doorjamb. He looked in at her with eyes that were lighter than they had been for hours.

“I just thought it was the only room that worked with the colors,” she explained, running her finger over the black marble of the sink.

“What color do you want in your room?” he asked her.

She raised her eyebrow. “Which room is mine?”

He shrugged simply. “Your choice.”

“Really?”

“Do I usually lie to you?”

She smirked. “No, but feel free to.”

He stepped out of the bathroom, glancing back at her, waiting for her to join them as they took in the four bedrooms of the house.

“I guess they were hoping for a big family,” Celeste pointed out.

“Or they just wanted a lot of room, like we did,” Chris explained, watching her look at every room carefully. Two of the larger rooms had walk in closets; one had its own personal bathroom. For a moment he was sure her heart was set on the one with the bathroom, then seeing the white fixtures she had changed her mind.

“We just wanted whatever was available,” Celeste pointed out, stepping into the last room, the smallest of the rooms, though not by much. However, that small room had something none of the other rooms did: a balcony. She moved towards it, pushing at the gray doors, already mentally picturing what this room would look like in what colors, then looked out upon color that took her breath away.

“I’m not sure if those are the Taconic Mountains or the Berkshires,” Celeste said in a whisper of a voice.

Chris chuckled, stepping up behind her to look out on the greenery growing outwards. There were no houses beyond this point, only the beauty of nature. “This would probably look lovely in the Autumn.”

“I see you do not deny that you do not know either,” Celeste pointed out laughingly.

“I’m lucky I knew how to find this house.”

Celeste glanced back at him. “Where’s Mom?”

Chris chuckled and leaned forward against the railing with her. “She’s going over plans with Randall Taylor to decorate the whole house.”

“Great,” Celeste sighed, leaning forward further. Chris could not help but appreciate the angle as it stuck out that firm and perfect ass. “She seems to think we have a limitless amount of funds.”

“Celeste, with my skills, we do,” he told her, running his hand over her hair. “Why don’t you stop acting like the adult and worry about what colors you are going to paint your room?”

Celeste let out a groan. “I can’t,” she complained. “The first thing I saw when we walked in was a nice pastel pink and lavender, but after seeing this… I almost think I want to go with Autumn colors.”

Chris chuckled, enjoying the almost completely teenage reaction. There was still that spark in her eyes, of an adult caught in a teenager’s body, warring between herself and a self that was trying to take over. In many ways he assumed it was there before he had come into her life again. A girl who longed to be a teenager but was often forced to take the part of an adult.

“Okay, then we’ll go shopping for paint samples,” he told her, glancing back into the room.

“Oh, shopping, even for paint samples it is most women’s dream to just spend money,” Celeste grinned, her eyes still glued to the majestic beauty of the nature that was there before them.

“You were raised as a Lieberman, you had whatever your heart desired,” he explained to her.

“You haven’t been gone that long, Chris,” she nearly snapped, but her mood was too light, her heart not as heavy, for it to be as angry as she usually would have intended. “I was bought what was fitting, that’s why that day you caught me shopping, and let me buy whatever I wanted, that was great.”

Chris watched her for a few more moments then decided he needed to stop. Out here on the balcony he was unsure of who could see them, and in a small town over little over five-thousand it was greatly possible he was going to make a mistake in front of someone he should not. Instead he slid an arm around her and pulled her close, hugging her lightly to him. He ignored the burning throb between his legs that was usually associated with needing her too badly, and just held onto her.

To not spoil the moment, or because she simply was enjoying it, she leaned over and stayed pressed close to him, both of them watching the scenery.

Moments like that had to be spoiled at some point. It was not like life could stay in serene moment forever, but the people interrupted were usually still annoyed.

“What a happy family you seem to be,” Mr. Taylor’s rumbling voice filled the room. Celeste and Chris turned to look back at the realtor/banker, Cassie standing with him, her eyes narrowed on them.

Celeste and Chris pulled away from one another, both doing their best not to look perturbed. “Celeste has chosen her room,” Chris announced, giving her a pat on the back before walking away to join his “wife” and once more making Celeste feel sick.

Cassie looked to her daughter, raising an eyebrow. “Are you sure this is the room you want?” Cassie was remembering the room Celeste had left behind in their overdone condo, a bedroom that had been nearly the size of the floor all four of these rooms were on, and now this girl was choosing this particular bedroom.

“Yes, this is the room I want,” Celeste announced and turned away from both of them, stepping back onto the balcony, her fingers absently playing with the bracelet on her wrist that she had never taken off through this whole ordeal. In many ways she was shocked to glance down and still see it hanging there. All of these weeks, in all of her anger, she had kept that one memento of him from before. While dancing it along her wrist she pulled her hand up, noticing a smudge along her wrist. When she ran her thumb over it she noticed a small scar that had never been there before. It must have been from the handcuffs, she had been too distracted to realize it was scarring.

She turned back towards them, watching the couple walk out of her room, arm in arm, looking in love. She clung to that bracelet, it was all she had remaining of a life she had left behind.