Another Side of Me

Chapter 10 - Queen

I woke up. It was already noon and it was raining. Ugh. I wanted to stay in bed but I can't because I invited Abby to dinner tonight and I have to shop for groceries because I don't have any decent ingredient to cook for her. I jumped out of bed and decided to start my day.

I sipped my strong black coffee as I was thinking about what I'm going to cook for dinner tonight. The only thing I can think of right now is Spicy Garlic Lime Chicken. I made that before and it is pretty good so I listed the things that I needed to buy at the grocery store.

As I was on my way to the grocery store, I decided to stop by the Oakfrost Art Gallery. The earthy smell from the rain is oddly relaxing me. Although I love the sun, but little things like this are the reason why I love the rain too. I closed my umbrella as I stepped on the porch of the Gallery and putted my wet umbrella in an umbrella stand outside the main entrance. I opened the door and went inside. This place has that nostalgic feeling on me.

"Good afternoon Miss, how can I help you?" A lady at the information desk asked with a friendly smile as I was approaching her.

"Hey." I said. "I was wondering, is the curator in the building? Mr. Arthur?"

"Let me check." She said and she made a phone call. "The curator will be with you in a minute. Please wait." She said as she hung up the phone.

"Okay, I'll be waiting in the east gallery. Thank you so much."

"Sure, no problem Miss." She said with a polite smile

I stepped away from the information desk and went into the east gallery. A familiar photograph came to sight and a smile formed on my face. I stood there studying the photograph as a foreign voice called upon my name.

"Alexandra Wyatt?" I looked at this tall lady with a medium long dark brown hair and gray eyes. She was wearing a white blouse and a very tight pencil skirt.

"Yes?" I responded as I furrowed my brow to recall my memory of who is this familiar girl that knew my name.

"Hi, I'm Raina Augustine. I'm the curator here." She introduced herself. There was a vague French accent in her voice. "What a pleasure to meet you again."

"Hey." I said, puzzled. I managed to give her a half smile for politeness. "I'm sorry, do we know each other?" I asked apologetically.

She let a small laugh out. "We met in this very spot when that photograph that you took of Gia Turner became an official display here." She said as she pointed to the photograph that I took and she looked at it in adoration. "I think it was 3 years ago when I was just a junior curator here." She chuckled.

"Oh right. Sorry about that." I let a small nervous laugh out. As I run my hand through my hair to hide my nervousness. "That's why you seemed very familiar." She nodded and smiled. "Raina, that's a beautiful name, is it French or something?" I asked trying to make a casual chit chat.

"I am part French." She said with a smile. "But Raina is actually a Bulgarian name, which means Queen." She grinned.

"That's really cool." I replied in fascination. "Anyways, does Mr. Arthur still work here?" There was a change of expression in her face when I mentioned his name.

"Oh, you don't know. Mr. Arthur passed away last year. He died of a heart attack." She said with a very upset tone.

"God, I'm so sorry. That's terrible. I had no idea."

"Yeah it's okay. We still miss him a lot here."

"I can see why, he was such a sweet man."

"Yes he was." There was a silence between us as we were gazing upon Gia's photograph.