Sweet Nola

Chapter Four

Nola had sent the form four months ago and it was accepted for better or worse. She had spent months finding and waiting for the perfect accommodation to show up. She had found a new school that had a bus service for Allie. In a couple of days, they will be moving to a new city.

Nola had asked Allie and he had said what she expected. "If that's what you want, do it."

One of the work colleagues suggested a going away party for Nola which she was elated for before Dave interjected and said she's still working here. It was true. From time to time she would have to drop back to the main branch to sort her project out. She shot a disappointed look to the ceiling, to the heavens. Damn Dave! How dare he thwart my going away party! They ended up deciding to have a small party instead of a company wide, full blown one where everybody was invited like those old primary school birthday parties from rich kids.

For lunch, Vasco went around poking people working at their desk to see if they wanted to join them for her last lunch. One elderly gentlemen refused. Every day, this old skeletal man would eat lunch at his desk so it wasn't unnatural for him to turn down the offer. Nola with quiet pity, urged him amicably. It bored the hell out of her seeing these goddamn office drones so obsessed with their menial paperwork.

"Where's Dave gone?"

"Dave's meeting with his wife."

"That Dave! He's always there for everything. His wife's the only thing stopping him," said office mook number one, whose name was Marcus.

They collected three other workmates in the end: Jack, Marcus and Jane. They went down to a local gourmet style burger joint three blocks from the office. Burgers again, she thought.

They grabbed a seat beside the cashier. Marcus let out a good hearty laugh at Vasco eating his vegetarian Caesar salad.

"Didn't know you became a vegetarian Vasco, eh?"

"I've been trying to lose weight recently to make my wife happy."

"Yeah right. I bet she complained about your beer belly."

Vasco ignored the office mook and turned his attention to Nola, "Have you found decent accommodation yet?" Vasco forked a lettuce leaf begrudgingly and put it into his mouth slowly.

"Yeah I did," she said enthusiastically, "I found a really large bungalow if the description and the pictures can be trusted. It has a large supermarket right beside it and it's not too far from the city centre or the university."

Jack and Marcus nodded in unison.

They chatted about old times, plans for the future and blah blah blah. The talk bored the hell out of Nola and she was glad when they left. Vasco paid for Nola's meal which made it sort of worth it for Nola.

Nola was having a real party with her friends tonight. Nola's friends have organised a going away party at a high end bar called Tribal. She was planning to drink away all her worries of her uncertain future. She made some small talk with Jane as they walked back. She was so quiet that she almost forgot she was part of the party and not a random stranger sitting in their table. She invited Jane to it but she turned down the offer.

She messaged if Eleanor wanted to come over and even urged her to come to the bar to meet and mingle with her friends. She staunchly rejected her proposal as always and wanted to babysit Allie instead.

The next day, she woke up on the couch in the large living room. Allie sat in front of the upright piano by the wall. His hand was gliding over the keys effortlessly, hovering like a ghost that haunted the piano. Back and forth it went. Nola saw what he was doing. He was ghost playing and sight-reading. The music sheet in front of him was Liszt's Liebesträume No.3, Love's Dream. Nola read a bit about music so she could share some trivia with Allie. She had learnt that Fran Liszt was a virtuoso in piano who kept a single hairstyle all his life. Allie's hand stopped and his fingers fell gently on the keys to sound the dream. Allie played a simplified version of his piece, not because he lacked the skill to play the original, but because his hands were too small.

Fragments of the dream that Nola woke up from were still in her memory. In her childhood there was a neighbour she visited often when her older sisters refused to include her in their games. The neighbour was a boy who was a year older than her. She always treated him like how her own older sisters treated her which was to say, not equal in any way.