"Andrea?" She turned to see Julian standing there, waving at her as he
approached with his long strides, a hat in hand.
He sees me?!
"Julian!" Andrea called out to him, tears flowing down her cheek as she turned
and was all of a sudden able to not only move but run towards him. Andrea
slammed against his muscled frame as she wrapped her arms around him,
uncaring of the fact that she was hugging a man she had only ever met once
before, and spoken to for barely five minutes.
"Wow, and what did I do to deserve this greeting?" He patted her back
awkwardly.
"Julian! We've gotta go! He—" Andrea turned to point at…. Nothing, she was
pointing at nothing. Just like that, he was gone.
"I-I… I don't understand."
"Neither do I, Andrea." He said kindly, as he lightly removed her arms around
him and awkwardly patted her on the shoulder, "How about we talk all about it
as we wait for your mother, no?"
She did not know why, but his presence was a relief that her spirit was excited to
be in the vicinity of, "Y-Yeah… yeah, that's a good idea."
Andrea tried to recompose herself best that she could, "I'm… I'm sorry about, you
know, hugging you…."
Julian nodded his head, "No worries there, Andrea. Haven't gotten one in a long
while anyway, seems I was due for it." His face changed and became more….
Stern would have been too strong a word to describe it, but the amusement and
light in him that could draw all eyes towards him in any room, seemed to
dissipate and be replaced by a cold and blank demeanor. She could not say for
certain what it was, especially with his dark shades still covering his eyes.
"Now, tell me what just happened."
Andrea never once considered lying to him, despite how crazy the story would
have made her sound, "There's…. there's been this man that's been following us
and—" He cut off her quick babble with a raised finger, "Andrea, you're still a
little frantic. You must be able to compose yourself and formulate your thoughts
quickly, before relaying what you think if you ever wish to…." He hesitated a
moment before nodding his head, "follow in your mother's footsteps."
He's right, she thought, taking a few deep breaths as she quickly replayed what
had happened over again in her mind, "There has been a man that has been
following me and a friend of mine,"
He nodded his head, "Kaala, I presume."
"Yes. At first we'd thought that it was a one-time thing, but then he kept on
showing up. First at my house just before you arrived, and a second time at
school, and then just now before I bumped into you."
Julian was stroking his moustache as they stood on the same sidewalk that
Andrea confronted her stalker and almost got burnt alive upon, surprising her by
how seriously he seemed to be taking this, "Alright then. And you then thought it
wise to approach him instead of hiding and waiting for your mother in her office?"
Andrea tried not to sound too defensive, "I… I thought that it was my best chance
at learning what it is that he wanted."
"Ah… and best to do so in public, surrounded by people who might just help a
teenage girl if she was attacked by some strange man in a hood. How very bold of
you."
His praise raised her spirits, and Andrea could not fight the smile forming on her
face despite herself, "Thank you! That's what I told Kaala."
"And" Julian continued, "Did he tell you what it is that he wanted?"
This was the hard part, because he did, and at the same time, did not. Andrea
knew that whatever she had just told him would no longer hold up after what
she was about to say, for he was more than capable of dismissing her words as
the ramblings of some attention-seeking child were she to be honest.
Andrea sighed, and decided to carry on, I should think of it as more of a test run,
she told herself, for when I tell Momma, "He did, but it made no goddamn sense. He mentioned something about feeding me to the source, or whatever. And then he trapped me with like…. His mind, or some shit. A-And then he opened his mouth but not like how you and I open our mouths, but like.... like a snake would! And then his
mouth started to heat up like a furnace and he threatened to burn me… slowly…"
Julian's expression remained blank, and she gave him a moment to take it all in
before he inevitably began to question her and her sanity.
"That is odd." Was all he said, after he had decided to put her out of her misery
and finally say something.
"I just told you that some man trapped me with his mind, and then opened his
mouth as wide as a snake, and then tried to burn me with the fire burning in that
mouth…. And all you're gonna give me is a 'that's odd'?"
Julian raised his heavy shoulders before letting them fall, "I suppose I need more
time to digest what you just said, Andrea. I do not wish to undermine your
experience by…. Questioning its existence, but it is a lot to wrap my head around.
So, I had hoped that a 'that is odd' would do for now."
She felt relieved that he did not outright call her crazy at the very least, "I guess
that makes sense…. Oh my God?! Where's Kaala!"
"Steady now," Julian turned and pointed towards her mother's practice across
the street, "I spoke to her and saw her inside. Shall we go and let her know that
her best friend is okay?"
Andrea nodded her head, that silly smile still upon her face as they went. She
could feel him glance towards her a few times, but chalked it up to him being
worried for her. They entered the building and walked towards the elevator, her
mother's practice was on level three, "Wait a minute…. Why were you there?"
Julian raised an eyebrow, "Where, exactly?"
Her eyebrows furrowed as she glared at him, the two waiting for the elevator,
"You know what I mean, Julian."
"Julian? How informal," He said, a small smile threatening to appear, "I…. I
wanted to see your mother again, I suppose. She was not exactly appreciative of
my…. Advances, the last time the two of us spoke."
If Andrea's jaw could hit the ground, it would have at that exact moment, "You
were coming to ask my mother out again?"
The elevator dinged a moment before the doors slid open. Julian turned to face
her to give her a goodbye, for what could be the final time, "No, not again. I had,
earlier, but supposed I should have read the situation better. I came to apologize,
that is all."
He spoke with such finality that Andrea had no choice but to take him at his
word and enter the elevator, "Well… I'll tell her that you stopped by."
"Thank you." Was all Julian said, those dark shades that hid his eyes the last thing
she saw before the doors began to close, "Go a little easy on your friend."
Andrea pressed the button to take her to floor three, where at the end of the
hallway, written in faded gold, was Bordeaux and Perkins, the name of her great-
great-grandfather and his partner, Lancel Perkins, a man who used to be a slave
to a lawyer born in Massachusetts who allowed him to read through his
textbooks and eventually wound up educated enough to enter law school and
become an attorney. Perkins' family moved some time out of New Orleans in the
60's, leaving the business in the hands of her grandfather, Armand Bordeaux,
who then passed it onto her mother a handful of decades later. That long legacy was a double-edged blade that would be at the core of Andrea's
anxiety. On the one hand, she was so proud of her family's lineage in law that she
would beam with pride whenever someone stopped her in her neighborhood to
pass on a thank you to her mother for taking on their case, or walking by Joe
and Larry to hear them recount to her for the hundredth time how her
grandfather got them out of a bind in the 60's during civil rights protests.
But on the other, it was a lot of pressure; being the only Bordeaux she knew of
her generation, working to take that baton and run with it as well as her
predecessors had. It's what made every 'C+' in Bio or 'B-' in Chemistry so
frustrating, that she was failing from the outset. Not even coming close to even
deserving the baton, no less taking it in stride.
Andrea entered the office quickly, having told Kaala once of where her mother kept
her spare key hidden (it's under the pot plant by the door), "Kaala!"
"What?" She asked, one of her thick eyebrows raised as she looked up from the
magazine that she was reading sat on the couch adjacent to her mother's desk by
the window, "Don't be shouting my name just because we're in your mother's
office, Andy."
Andrea stopped and cocked her head to the side, "What the….?"
Kaala sighed and rolled her eyes, putting the magazine down, "Relax Bruh, it was
a joke."
"No! I know that it's just…." She frowned at Kaala's confused expression, "The
hooded man…."
Kaala snorted before bursting out into a fit of laughter, "Is this some type of
prank, Andy? You know tha—"
"Kaala!" Andrea snarled as she grabbed her by the shoulders, "This is no laughing
matter! Why'd you leave me behind with that man! You were supposed to stay
and call for help if anything goes wrong!"
Kaala's dark brown eyes looked up at her with terror, but not fear for the shared
enemy that she seemed to have forgotten about, but at Andrea herself, "Andrea!
You're hurting me!"
She let go of her and took a few steps back, her mind reeling as Kaala pulled her
knees up to her chest, "I don't know what you're talking about! You said that you
wanted to leave school and come here to get some math homework done. Then
we met Julian and he took you aside to discuss something he wanted your
mother to know…. I decided to come up here and wait for you…."
This cant be fucking happening….
Andrea sat down on the couch next to Kaala, her head reeling as she tried to
grasp for anything to indicate that it was the world, and not herself, that was
going mad.
"Kaala…. I think that I'm going insane…."
And then Andrea remembered that the Hooded man was able to do…. things.
Things that made other people noticing what he was up to impossible,
like an entire sidewalk full of people deciding to ignore her being attacked by
him. Did he do it to Kaala too? She wondered, unsure of if what she had even seen
had been real to begin with.
Her friend reached out tentatively, and then more assuredly when she was
certain that Andrea was not going to tear her arm out its socket and beat her over the head with it, "Look, Andy. If ever anything comes up that you need an ear for, I'm here, okay. I will always be here."
Andrea felt her eyes begin to sting as she leaned over and buried her head in
Kaala's lap, "I know La… it's why I love you so much."
"I love you too, Andy."
Those words did lift her mood some, but it was still incredibly dreary in her
heart right then. The fact of the matter was that only two things could be true,
either the man hunting her was some evil super powered freak who wanted to
kidnap her and feed her to 'The Source', or she was losing her goddamn mind.
Both options were horrifying, and to see her best friend suddenly forget their shared plight made Andrea feel even more dreadful and hopeless. As if she were drowning in a pool filled with people, and not a one of them cared enough to
notice. She was tempted to try again with Kaala, just to make sure that it was not
her friend who was losing it, when the door opened and her mother entered with
her assistant, Delilah Jones, carrying a cabinet full of sheets and files behind her.
"Momma!" Andrea shot up off the couch and launched herself towards her
mother, who stumbled to catch her, "Oh! Wow, thanks for the greeting baby."
Her mother's arms wrapped around her, forming a barrier between Andrea and
the world that seemed to be turning against her, creating a little safe space that
was for them and them alone.
And for a moment, Andrea was freed of all her stresses and gifted with a little
chunk of her childhood back.
"What's wrong, Andy Baby?"
I should tell her…
"Momma, I…."
Tell her….
"I saw Mr. Nerva today."
Her mother let go as Delilah snorted, and like a hole in a hull, the world and all its
evils began to flood back in, "… Lord have mercy. And what did that man want?"
"Your number and a date." Delilah muttered, and her mother glared at her.
Andrea was once again taken aback by her mother's hostile tone and demeanor
and frowned, "Nothing…. Just to apologize for bothering you...."
She rolled her eyes as she took off her dark grey coat and hung it on the coatrack,
"So, he is apologizing for bothering me by…. bothering me again?" Andrea
watched her mother set her briefcase on the table and sat down, "Well, if you
ever run into Mr Nerva, run. And if you're too hardheaded to listen to me and
stick around, at least be good enough to tell him to stick it where the sun don't
shine."
"Or to give him my number instead," Delilah winked at her, flipping her braided
ponytail behind her shoulder, "That man is fine as all hell."
Her mother and Delilah began bickering, and the scene before her hit Andrea like
a truck, the slice of normality very much needed after the ocean's worth of
insanity that had ruined her day up. The sense of relief almost made her want to cry, "Yes Momma." She smiled and went to sit back down with Kaala, "Sorry about earlier…. I lost it for a bit, but I'm back now." Andrea said, as much for herself as it was for Kaala, "Now, get to doing the homework, I need something to copy off of."
"Now I know you didn't just say that in front of me." Her mother said, her eyes
never once looking up from the case she was reading.
The two girls laughed, and Andrea decided to leave her troubles for another day.