PART III

Cocaine Princess here.

Valentina was not going to let this go. My mischievous best friend knew she had me in her clutches. I had two choices at that point, tell her the reason or take the phone and hit myself in the head with it until I became unconscious. I picked the first one. 'Alright, alright, you really want to know what's bothering me, I will tell you,' I said. 'I'm listening, go,' she anxiously replied. 'I have a zit. It's a small one and it doesn't go away,' I replied. 'What?' 'I'm telling you what's bothering me. I have a zit that doesn't go away. I've tried squeezing it, medicating it and even drying it out, nothing works.' 'A zit is bothering you?' Valentina asked. 'Well yeah, it just sits there taunting me.' I started to laugh. I thought Valentina would find it humorous but she wasn't laughing. 'I'm glad you're finding this so amusing. I'm sick over worrying what's bothering you and you're cracking jokes? I am so tempted to call daddy and tell him you're still feeling icky.' 'You're putting words in my mouth. When did I say I was still feeling icky?' I asked. 'On the count on 3 I want you to tell me. 1, 2.......3!' I didn't say a word. I remained silent as Valentina continued to pressure me into telling her but I refused. Most of the time, well 99% of the time I give into Valentina because it's pointless to argue with her. It's pointless because she will exhaust you to a point where she gives you no choice but to give up and give in. Not this time, my mind was made up and I wasn't going to change it. I wasn't going to tell her, at least not yet. 'I am deeply hurt,' she began to say. 'After all the two of us have been through over the years, the laughter, the tears, the joy and the tragedy, I'm hurt you don't trust me enough to tell me.' 'Valentina trust has nothing to do with it,' I said. 'Why don't you plunge a knife in my heart, it'll probably hurt a lot less.' 'Oh my God,' I said back. I was seriously considering hitting myself in the head with the phone. I explained as best I could to her, sometimes there are certain things an individual prefers to handle by themselves without anyones' help regardless of how much you may love and care for that person who is trying to help you. 'If you don't want to tell me is there anything I can do to help you through it? Why don't we go on a trip and maybe that'll help you sort through whatever is going on. Let's go down to Cabo!!' she exclaimed. I love Cabo and tempting as the offer sounded I said, 'I don't know, maybe in a couple of months.' 'In a couple of months it'll be hurricane season. We even make an attempt to step outside we'll be swept away and wind up like those people on LOST. So you're really not going to tell me?' 'Not today but I promise another day. So are we okay?' 'No' she replied. 'You maybe okay but I'm not. What do you have planned for the rest of the day?' I was in the middle of informing her about my laptop problem when she interrupted me. 'Can you give me a small hint as to what the problem is?' 'Valentina when I speak do you not hear the words that come out of my mouth?' I asked. I then said I needed to get off the phone. I was late already and didn't want to get to the repair center only to find it closed.

Twenty minutes later I was ready to leave. My hand was on the garage door, the phone starting ringing. No, I thought to myself. It can't be her. I let go of the door handle and ran to answer it. Who do you think it was? 'Have you changed your mind yet?' she asked. 'Valentina I'm hanging up the phone now.' 'Call me when you get back,' she said in a very grumpy voice.

It was such a beautiful day last Wednesday, we hit 26C (today it's only 8C). I decided to go by myself. Usually I take a driver when I need to go right into the core of the city. There are so many road closures forcing you to re-route, too many one way and zig zagging streets and above all the drivers are so aggressive. The repair center was located in China Town. I dropped off the laptop and was told it would be fixed and ready for pick up by Saturday. I didn't feel like sticking around, it was almost 5pm and I wanted to get back on the highway to avoid the rush hour traffic. I was too late, the rush had already begun. It took me only 30 minutes to get to China Town and an hour and a half to return home. As I was stuck in bumper to bumper traffic I felt sort of bad for not telling Valentina and a few times thought about calling her but I didn't. I had made my decision and was going to stick to it. When I did arrive back home 'A' was home from work and said, 'you have five messages, all from the hurricane. She wants you to call her back asap. What's bothering you?' she asked. 'Why?' I curiously asked back. 'The hurricane said something was bothering you and asked if I knew what it was. I told her I didn't know. What's wrong?' I just shook my head in disbelief. One thing can be said about Valentina, she is persistent. 'Trust me it's nothing,' I replied. 'Are you sure?' I nodded yes. The last thing I needed was having two people on my case. 'Well I'm here if you need me,' she replied. If my conversations with Valentina were only this simple. Two seconds later the phone rang. I stood there looking at it. 'Aren't you going to answer it?' A asked. 'Right after I take a Tylenol,' I replied.

SATURDAY MORNING

I returned to China Town by myself again. I parked in the same spot as last time, in one of the nearby shopping malls' parking garage. I could have parked on the street right across from the repair store but chose not to. I really suck at parallel parking. (For some reason the car gets parked at a weird angle) I took the parking garage elevator and arrived at the lobby of the mall and thought since I'm already here I might as well browse a little. There wasn't really much that interested me except for the pet store. I decided to get a gold fish. I use to have one when I was little. In the back of the store I heard a very familiar sound, the sound of dogs barking. Unlike the hideous beast these dogs were all normal looking. There were several different breeds including a Doberman. Valentina has a couple of Doberman dogs and they are far from friendly. They're vicious guard dogs that have been trained to attack on command. I started to imagine,
what if I bought a Doberman and had it trained to attack on command? And one night by 'accident' I let it loose in my neighbors yard when the hideous creature was barking?...I'm just joking. I'm not a mean spirited person. I did buy my gold fish though. Holding my gold fish in the water filled plastic bag I headed on over to the repair center. Four people were in front of me. While waiting for my turn police sirens starting blazing outside followed by an ambulance. I didn't think much of it. I was downtown and figured maybe there was an accident or something. It was such a relief to not only see my laptop but to have it back in my own hands. My laptop's fan just needed replacing.

Back outside the police were everywhere and a crowd had gathered. I managed to make my way through the crowd but was stopped by a police officer. 'I'm sorry miss, no one's allowed in or out of the mall. There's been a shooting.'

To be continued....

XOXOXOXO,
Cocaine Princess