Behind Their Veneers

II

‘A man's deep voice stopped her before she had gone a dozen steps. "He must be an extremely foolish man to turn his back and run from such beauty."’

"No! You can't do this to him!"

‘Charlotte whirled to face the man who stepped up on the path behind her. He must have been sitting out of her view on the stone bench in the shadow of the dogwood that reached its limbs toward the veranda.’

‘"Forgive me," he said. "It wasn't my intention to startle you."’

"Sim Cheong! You can't fucking do this to him!"

‘In the moonlight it wasn't hard to see the amused smile playing across his lips under his mustache that gave lie to his words. That had been exactly what he'd intended. Charlotte thought as she stared up at him with no pretense of demurely lowering her eyes. He was tall, even taller than Edwin, but while Edwin slouched to try to keep from towering above his companions, this man stood straight, completely at ease with his height. He was quite handsome with thick dark hair brushed back from his forehead and a strong profile. She had no idea who he was. . .’

"Why?!. . . This is so fucking unfair! Why would you do this to him, Cheong?! He fucking loves you even with how you're a totally different specie than he is!" Oriana wailed, successfully interrupting Emerald from the novel she was currently reading.

"Oriana, can you please be quiet? It's just a movie," she sighed, placing her glasses over her head as she looked at Ori over the book.

She was currently lying on their red velvet couch with an opened novel on her chest as she tried to focus but as you could see, her efforts were proving to be futile with Oriana's speaker type voice.

"Just a movie? Just a movie?!" she cried in disbelief.

"You just referred to the most amazing Korean series in the history of Korean movies ever acted in the entire fucking universe as 'just a movie'?! You're unbelievable, Mera," she looked indeed hurt as she held a hand to her chest, squeezing tight.

Emerald sighed as she removed her pencil from behind her ear and marked the spot where she had stopped before placing the pencil in and shutting the book.

She ran her hand down her face as she looked from the paused scene that had been playing on the TV to a sniffling Oriana, who was blowing her nose into a tissue, her cheeks wet with tears as she mumbled profanities against the person that had written the play. Her lips, part of her chin and below her nose, completely covered in ice cream. She had actually cried because of a movie.

It was currently a Thursday night and Emerald had had quite a busy day at work with quite a number of clients showing up, both old and new ones. So she had hoped to come home, take a long hot shower, have dinner, take her vitamins and succumb to a world of fantasies for a little while before going to bed, because she also had a packed day ahead of her tomorrow with work and then having to head to the airport.

So imagine her frustration with having to have her plans ruined as always. Every other thing had gone well but as she had settled to dive into one of the new novels she had purchased earlier this month, she had barely completed a chapter when Oriana had decided to grace her with her deafening wails all because of a romance movie.

"What's so special about it anyway?" Ori's head immediately snapped to look at her as the words left her mouth. She was already dreading opening her mouth. She just had to say something, didn't she? She could've just taken the opportunity to retreat into her idyllically tranquil niche. Her most trusted source of solace in times of the grief in her life with the name, Oriana but no, she had to open her big yap.