Looking For A Legend (Book 1)

Looking For A Legend Chapter 2 - Valentina

Valentina woke to the sound of furious knocking on her bedroom door, and her father shouting her name.  With a muffled groan, she stretched, and then curled into a tighter ball.  Valentina was like a butterfly, yet to emerge from her blanket cocoon.   With her knees pulled to her chest, compressing her large breasts, she tried ignoring the sound that sought to wake her.  Until she head her middle name.

”Valentina Michaela Lytton! Your alarm has been going off for twenty minutes! Get up!” Her father shouted again.

“Okay! Okay! I’m up, Dad! I’ll be out in a minute, just lemme get dressed!” She called back in a drowsy voice.  With a dramatic sweep of her arm, Valentina threw the blankets back and slid out of her queen sized bed.  Up late the night before, watching a movie with her best friend, Leibe over the phone, Valentina yawned on her way into her private bathroom.

Her beauty routine was well practiced, the same everyone morning: brush her teeth, shower, and comb and deep condition her hair, lotion her face, then lotion the rest of her body.  Adequately moisturized, Valentina walked into her closet, still holding the towel around her body. She sorted through her clothes for a few minutes, trying to decide what to wear, unhappy with everything she owned.  As she collapsed on to the plush velvet upholstered ottoman before her shelves of shoes, Valentina knocked over a shopping bag.  Clothes she hadn’t even unpacked yet.  Excitedly, Valentina pulled the bag into her lap.  She removed the tissue wrapped garments to find an ultra-refined three-quarter sleeve tee shirt in a slate grey.  Before she could see what else was there, her father delivered another round of knocking.

Not wanting to face a lecture, Valentina dropped the rest of the garments back into bag, and then put the bag back on the floor.  She dressed quickly in a matching set of black bra and panties, and stockings, then the tee shirt, and finally grabbed a black knee length pencil skirt and shimmied in to her clothes.  Valentina stepped into black heels and returned to the bathroom to finish her beauty routine.  The marble counter top was covered in cosmetics and hair products.  This was her least favorite part of her morning.  She met her own deep brown eyes in the mirror and couldn’t avoid looking at the large archipelago of scars across her nose and cheeks.  Most girls had freckles there, but Valentina had a collection of pink marred skin.  Valentina has worn the scar for as long as she could remember, however she couldn’t remember how she got it.

Valentina set to covering her scar with make-up, a few layers of various creams and powders, and then made up her eyes and full lips.  Blow drying and styling her tawny hair and putting on perfume finalized her routine.

After walking back through her bedroom, Valentina found her father waiting at her door still.  Valentina’s father, Murroh was back from their building’s gym, still wearing a grey Army tee shirt and black sweat pants, and always, his black eye patch.  He did not look happy, there was some emotion locked behind his lone blue eye.

”Valentina, we had an agreement.” Murroh said as they walked out to the terrace where breakfast was waiting.  He pulled out her chair for her, letting Valentina sit down before he continued. “We agreed if you could meet the admission requirements by September, I would let you attend that school in London.”

Valentina nodded, looking at the New York City skyline instead of her father, “I know, Dd.  I’m trying.  I’m sorry; I was up late last night.  It happened, like, just this one time.” She let out an exasperated sign.  Unlike her father, she spoke with a curious European accent.

”No, Valentina, this isn’t the first time.” He sighed with her, running a hand of his sheared short black hair.  ”But, if you don’t want to go any more, we can call off the deal.”

”Dad! It’s you that doesn’t want me to go! God!  You can’t keep me in New York forever!  You are literally locking me up in an ivory tower!” Valentina swept her arm out, gesturing dramatically toward their view of Central Park.

”Valentina, I just want you to be happy and safe.  But London is so far away, and I can’t keep you safe there,” he argued.

”I didn’t ask you to keep me safe! No one did! And I’ll be fine! I attended school in Switzerland for ten years! What could possibly happen at a college in England?” Valentina stabbed at cold rubbery eggs.  Her father was a miserable cook.

”Valentina,” Murroh said, defeated.  They ate quietly, a heavy tension between them.  Murroh ate his sausage and watched Valentina not look at him. “Valentina, I’m sorry.”

 “Sorry for what, Dad?” She finally looked back at him.

 “What am I not sorry for?  I’m sorry your mother died.  I’m sorry that you had to leave your home to come here.  I’m sorry I don’t understand what it’s like to be a teenage girl,” Murroh sighed.

“Eww! Dad! That’s gross!” Valentina shouted, but laughed.  Her laughter made Murroh smile. “Dad, you don’t need to apologize about Mom.  It’s sad, but it’s not like we can bring her back.  I miss her, and Switzerland, but I love you and New York too.  I just want a change.  I really like the way this school sounds.  I’ve been looking forward to it all summer.”

”I know, Valentina.  I know.  Alright, go get your bag and glasses.  I’m sure Leibe will be here any minute to pick you up.” Murroh gave her the best smile he could muster.  Valentina gave him a kiss on the cheek before running back to her room.

Back in her sanctuary, Valentina blew a kiss at a framed picture of her late mother.  Valentina’s mother passed away five years before.  It was an aneurysm that took her suddenly.  They lived in Switzerland then, just Valentina and her mother.  Valentina couldn’t remember a time when her parents lived together.  They always spoke politely of one another, but she’d never known them as a couple.  She didn’t think they were even ever married.

Valentina placed her favorite necklace on, a silver chain featuring the little dipper constellation, with a diamond for each star.  The piece was a gift from her father from when she was young, though she had to replace the chain every few years.  The sound of the elevator door chiming from the foyer snapped her out of her reflection.  Valentina grabbed her dark glasses and her school bag.  On her way out of the room, she picked up her white cane.  With a snap of her wrist, the cane unfolded.

When Valentina moved to America at age 14, following her mother’s death, she was classified as legally blind.  Truthfully, there was nothing wrong with her eye sight.  Her eye sight was perfect.  The real problem was that Valentina could see too much.  Like her mother, and father before her, Valentina was Extra-Sensory American.  She could see the events of the past in the places they occurred. 

Out of fear that Valentina would be overwhelmed by her visions, Murroh asked her to wear the dark glasses and walk with the cane.  To provide her with some degree of comfort, he went as far as buying the penthouse condo of a newly constructed high rise on the Upper East Side of New York City.  Nothing had ever occurred in their apartment before their life there.

Leibe Schwartz was waiting for her in the foyer.  Her best friend wore a billowing chiffon blouse in a pastel print, grey shorts and a black pair of heeled sandals.  A matching pastel scarf was buried in her frizzy brown hair.  Leibe didn’t stand as tall as Valentina, even in heels, but she was curvier in the hips and very fond of dark make up.

”Ready to go?” Leibe chirped.

”Yeah.  Coffee on the way?” Valentina stepped into the elevator waiting for her friend to follow.  ”Leibe?  Leibe! C’mon!”

Giggling, Leibe pranced into the elevator, “Oh my God! Your dad is so hot!”

”Ew! Stop! That’s why you come up here isn’t it?” Valentina teased.

”It’s a definite perk!” Leibe playfully shoved Valentina. “That’s why you never let me sleep over, isn’t it?  Afraid I’ll be your step-mom?”

Behind her dark glasses, Valentina rolled her eyes and hit the lobby button on the elevator.  Internally, she sighed and prepared herself for a day with the boy crazy, hormone driven Leibe Schwartz,  and counted the days left before they left for London.