Cherry - part 20

Cherry

Accent

She doesn't know what to do. She's in love with Percival, but should she tell him? Cathy and her have talked about their dinner all night. Yet she doesn't know what to do or how to proceed from here. Maybe just be his friend. If that's what she can get, she'll take it without complain.

“I'll have Richard to drive you home. In fact, I'll come with you and keep him company on the way back.” She says, and Cathy gets up from the couch and they walk together to the car where Richard awaits.

“Richard, could you drive Cathy home? I'll come with you.” He nods and opens the doors for the girls.

And they drive in silence, the long road to Cathy's house. When they arrive, Cherry hugs Cathy and says “I have to talk to him, don't I?” and she nods. “Talk to me when you do.” She answers.

Usually, Cherry sits in the back seat of her limo, but she has the need to talk about something completely different for a change, and she place herself in the front seat of the car.

“Take the long way home, Richard.”

They drove in the darkness and even though Cherry wanted to talk about something, anything, that wasn't about Percival, she never knew how to break the ice.

“Say something to me, Richard. Anything.”

“What would you like me to say miss?” His British accent always puts her at ease.

“I want you to tell me that I'm a dumb teen who's obsessing over a stupid boy.” She admits to herself how much her plan to not think about him, is failing slowly.

“I remember being in love.” He sighs. She notices how he drives the car, so professional.

“Tell me about your biggest crush.” Cherry says, leans back and closes her eyes.

“It was many years ago,” he begins, “it was a girl named Mindy. I met her at my last year of high school. I didn't know how to talk to girls so I just tried to sit next to her in every class we had together. And then, at one of the first parties of the year, we got to talk. From then, it wasn't much more different from how normal relationships start. But it was nice. And then, five years later, we got married. And now we've been together for almost twenty years.”

“That's such a nice story. Why have I never heard that before?”

“You should visit me more often in the garage. I do spend some time there, to take care of the cars.”

“I will.”

Cherry is almost asleep when they arrive home. She wakes up and looks directly into Richards big, brown eyes. Something about that face of his is so friendly it's hard not to like.

“I'll get you to your room, Miss.” He takes her arm and they walk towards the door.

“Please, call me Cherry.” A few minutes later they stand in front of Cherry's bedroom door.

“Goodnight, Cherry.” Richard says, and maybe she's tired, maybe she had just found a new found respect for her driver, so she hugs him and mumbles “goodnight, Richard.” and she turns to the door to open it. Turned toward the door, she says “I was very impressed by your story.” and she can almost hear Richards smile, and she's instantly comforted.

She always liked that accent of his.