The Pleasantview Chronicles: Ignition (pt. 3)

The silence of entering a lonely room shouldn’t have to be something that everyone should deal with. Especially, something Nina Caliente shouldn’t have to deal with.

From being Pleasantview’s call girl, to now working at the music store with Chester Gieke, it was now how much Nina wished that she shouldn’t have said no to Julien Cooke, or Malcolm Landgraab. Loneliness was now a symbol of how low she had sunken.

And, it was all because of Dina… How could Dina—of all people—take Don away when Nina finally fell in love with him? A kaleidoscope of all those terrible feelings simmered under her skin.

She threw her bag on the couch and didn’t even bother to take off her dirty shoes when she plopped onto her bed. She took out a cigarette, lit it, and began to remind herself of the days she spent in the arms of nearly every influential man in town…

“Where are you going, Angela?” Mary-Sue’s strict voice seemed to be coming from the walls.

Angela looked behind her to see her mother—in her pajamas and crossing her arms—looking straight at her.

“Do you know what time it is?” She looked at the grandfather clock, but Angela knew that she already knew of the time. “It is almost eleven.”

Daniel came out of the bathroom in time to see the tension building up between mother and child. “What’s wrong?”

“Your daughter is going out again. And look how late it is.”

“So, Angela, where are you going so late at night?”

Angela had tried every lie in the book; she was officially out of lies. “Nowhere.”

“That’s right. Go back to your room.”

Angela let out an exasperated and annoyed breath of air. “I’m eighteen. Can’t I be granted some leniency?”

Mary-Sue looked at her husband. She was surprised to find that he was looking right at her, as well. Mary-Sue spoke first. “Yes, you may be eighteen. But, you might as well be five, because of your attitude. Go to bed. Even eighteen year olds have to sleep.”

“Sorry; you know I won’t dare go against your mother,” Daniel admitted with a shrug. “I think it’s best if you go to sleep. We were going to go check out your dorms tomorrow, right?”

Angela shrugged and trotted up the stairs to her bedroom. She was surprised to see Lilith come out of the bathroom.

Lilith acknowledged her presence with a millisecond of a look.

“Aren’t you going out tonight?” Angela asked.

No reply.

“Hey.”

Lilith walked ahead of her to her room.

“I said ‘hey’.”

“What?” Lilith turned on her heel and glared. “What do you want?”

“I heard that you got a new shipment of pot. Heard you were doing it tonight.”

“Yeah? And what’s it to you?”

Angela’s eyes drifted to the floor. “Can I come along?”

Lilith’s eyes widened. “Come along? Hell no! I wouldn’t want you smoking my bong! You’re crazy.” Lilith turned to go back to her room. “I can’t believe that you’re so desperate to get out of the house that you’re willing to smoke my bong…Even I’m not that desperate…”

“I-I’m not desperate!”

Lilith turned to her sister once more, a smirk lining on her face. “Angela, you may be my sister. But, how long have we been hating each other?”

“…Our whole lives.”

“Yeah…So, do you really think I’m willing to be friends with you or show you sympathy for even one moment?”

“…Yeah, no.”

“Same here. Didn’t think so.”

“The girls finally fell asleep,” Jennifer announced as she came into her room. John was finishing a chapter of his book and set down his glasses.

“I for one thought they were going to stay up all night,” John admitted.

Jen sighed as she took her spot next to him. “This is hard. Nowadays, I can’t look at Danni without having to actually cry in front of her…”

“God, I can’t believe this town has become like this in just a few years…Remember how Cassandra was such a quiet girl?”

“That was such a long time ago, Hon.”

“…She looks a lot like her father, right?” John asked.

“John…”

“I can’t help but feel remorse. Don’t you feel guilty? I feel like I’m playing two-faced.”

“But we’re good people. Amber is best friends with Miranda, and we’re even good friends with Mortimer. You’re his employee, as well.”

“I wish I wasn’t a good person…”

Jen laughed. “Well, we have to remain good people. We’ve got Amber to take care of. Just a few more years, and we can go back to being bad people.”

He laughed. “Yeah, then we’d be able to move back to somewhere without any good people.”

“You’re wrong. We need to move to a place with no hypocrites.” Jen sighed. “Maybe we can hit it out at Belladonna Cove. I heard that a cousin of mine is out there,” Jen replied. She covered herself.

“Belladonna sounds nice.” He closed the light and took his place next to her.  “Yeah, Belladonna sounds nice.”

It was way beyond midnight. No one was up, or so Mary-Sue had thought. She was in the kitchen, looking one more time at the accumulating pile of bills. There was one for the gas, the water, the new car…

As she typed away on her calculator, she didn’t hear Daniel come in.

“Oh, you’re still up?” he asked.

She looked at him and gave him a slight nod.

Daniel went to the sink for a glass of water. “Good thing you caught Angela before she went out.”

“Yeah.”

“Did you get anything from the school?”

“Why do you ask?”

He shrugged and sipped his water. “It usually is around this time when we get something from the principal…”

She nodded and searched the pile of letters. “You’re right. I have something here for Lilith.”

“God, she’s going to college and she still gets these stupid suspensions…” His words hung between them. College. “…I can’t believe we’ve been married for nearly twenty years, eh?”

“Twenty years,” she repeated. And only ten years of peace. 

“Heard that the Goth kid is going to that Crumplebottom academy…”

“The West’s son is too.”

“I wish our girls could go.”

“The tuition is hell.”

Daniel laughed. “Sure is. Not like our college. How much was the tuition then? Do you remember?”

Mary-Sue attempted to recall the fee from nearly twenty-five years ago. “I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

“Oh well. I think the girls’ tuition is just about the same as ours, eh?”

“Around there.”

Silence presumed. Silence had quickly followed these two ever since that time nearly five years ago. Silence seemed to be the only way Mary-Sue could ever answer Daniel.

Silence was how she reacted when she found him and that other woman. Surprised? She was not. Angered? She was not. Jealous? Certainly, she was not.

She wanted to ask what had taken him forever to cheat on her. She had expected it; at one point, wanted it.

They had grown apart; ever since the girls started hating each other, she noticed how Daniel’s conversations became less interesting as if he was trying to make conversation. In the past, conversations between the two were made on the spur of the moment and filled with true intimacy. Nowadays, the conversations were usually watered down to small talk and filled with facts.

She genuinely lost interest in him. She was bored of him. She had realized this nearly ten years ago. But, she decided to keep her mouth shut and stay with Daniel. She could leave whenever she wanted, even if she had to abandon the twins. But, she stayed because she had once hoped that Daniel could become rather interesting again. BY the time she realized that he would never change, she realized that she was old and couldn’t start a new life again.

“…Mary, how about we take a vacation?”

“Vacation?” She lifted her face to watch him. “What about these bills? What about the girls? I can’t trust either Lilith or Angela alone in this house…And, what about work?”

Daniel gave a sad grin. He set down his cup. “I was just suggesting. Just the two of us, you know? For old times’ sakes…”

She let out a hot breath of air. “We have too many responsibilities. We aren’t young and carefree like before, Daniel. We’re old; things have changed.”

“…Yeah, you’re right. Things have changed.” He sighed and walked out. You have changed.

Mary-Sue sealed the last check into the envelope and laid her head onto the table. “…Vacation? When was the last time you wanted to go on a vacation with me and only me?” When we first got married. Before you asked me to marry you. When we were graduating high school… She lifted her eyes to the kitchen wall clock. It was nearing three in the morning.

She closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep, attempting to call back the easy sun, the palm trees, the sea breeze, and Daniel’s sweet lips caressing her skin. The sigh that escaped her lips revealed that she had finally fallen asleep.

Tomorrow would be another day.