The Arrangement: It Led Me To Love

Chapter 12 - Ellison's POV

The restaurant is a grand place, to say the least. Formal wear is the key to getting in – showing your wealth and worthiness of being able to enter such a splendid place. A young man who looks annoyingly yet understandably enchanted by Laurene leads us through to the private room I have booked. The mahogany table takes up most of the vast space the dark, romantic room offers, and is left without a tablecloth, daring guests to ruin the perfectly varnished shine with their unworthy fingerprints. Two tall, silver candelabras command attention from the centre of the table, holding smooth white candles whose wax never drips.

Half an hour and a whole lot of small talk later we sat with matching meals - mushroom soup, bitter greens with tomatoes the size of peas, rare roast beef slices as thin as paper, noodles in a green sauce, and cheese that melts on your tongue served with sweet blue grapes. The servers, both young people dressed in white tunics; move wordlessly to and from the table, keeping the platters and glasses full. It is as if we are in medieval times. With the flick of my wrist, they leave the room, allowing me to talk to Laurene properly.

"So, have you had any updates on your plan to buy that old hospital?" I ask, taking a sip of my wine.

"Well no, not yet. I am still waiting to hear back from the current owner, who is taking his damn time."

"Oh ok. Well I hope that it all works out."

"Thanks" She replies.

Silence follows.

"So... tell me something about yourself." I say to break the tension.

"Hmmm. Let me see. I have lived on my own since I was eighteen, and I am pretty close with my little brother Lucas."

"Cool. What about your mum?" I ask.

Laurene freezes and gapes at me with wide eyes.

"I'm sorry. Sensitive subject?" I question.

"Yeah. She is dead." Laurene bluntly tells me.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. I do not have a mother anymore either. Haven't seen her since I was a child."

"Do you know where she is?"

"I don't even know if she is alive."

Her eyes are filled with a kindness that seems so innocent, genuine and so endless: as big as the sea. It makes me feel all right and strangely happy. Her hand lapses onto one with my own, holding it for a second and squeezing kindly, offering a weak smile.

"I hope that you find her and reconcile with her. You only get one; so cherish the time you have with her before it is too late." I smile at Laurene. She really is very kind, and different to other girls I know.

She lets go of my hand, leaving a strange, empty and cold feeling to reside there. I must be coming down with some thing. There is no way that I am affected by this womans touch!

Laurene has impeccable dinner manners – I would not expect any thing less from a modern debutante. She is so quiet, polite and disarmingly beautiful, as she smiles at the waiters with a feral kindness and acts as if all are as worthy as her.

Perhaps that is why her skin glows so, it is her inner beauty that lights up her eyes and softens her features. When she smiles and laughs, you cannot help but smile along too, even if it is just on the inside. To be in her company is to feel that you too are someone, that summer rays regardless of the season have warmed you. Maybe it is the way that I feel indebted to her sweet soul, or perhaps I am trying to prove myself to her, but I can barely control myself as I let an apology roll off my tongue.