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Room 210; Thursday Afternoon [08/26].
Aug. 26th, 2021 05:58 amFandom was full of little surprises, wasn't it? But Astrid had to admit, from turning into an animal, thinking you were a princess for a weekend, or being confronted with a corporeal visit from your dead foster mom, none of them were quite so surprising as finding in her mail that day a letter from Ingrid.
It had been...months. Maybe even close to a year. And as much as Astrid's brain wanted to just tear it to shreds and toss it in the trash unopened, her heart could only allow her to rush up to her room as fast as her feet could carry her so she could immediately devour the words that awaited her on that onion-skin prison paper her mother had available to her.
( Dear Astrid, )
Astrid, now on her back on her bed in her quiet, lonely room, read through the letter again. And again, and again, and again, each time more voraciously, as if the spidery words, instead of satiating her hunger, only deepened it. There weren't words enough that could ever satisfy that hunger.
Alejandro the painter. Astrid remembered. Watching the line flow from his fingers, the movements of his arm. Was he a bad painter? It never occurred to her, as it never occurred to her that her mother could have felt excluded. Ingrid was beautiful there, she wore a white dress, and the buildings were ochre and yellow, her sandals crisscrossed like a Roman’s up her leg. Astrid traced the white X’s when she took them off. The hotel with screens and scrollwork around the door, the rooms open to the tiled walkway. You could hear what everybody was saying. When she smoked a joint she had to blow it out the balcony doors. It was a strange room, ochre, taller than it was square. She liked it, said there was room to think. And the bands of mariachis competed in the street below, the sound of concerts every night, from their beds under the netting.
Driving up from San Miguel de Allende in his toy-sized Citroen car, his shirt very white against his copper skin...
Was Ingrid admitting she made a mistake? If only she could admit it. Confess. Astrid might lie for her then, talk to her lawyer, take the stand and swear beyond a shadow of a doubt that she never. Perhaps this was as close as Ingrid would get to admitting a thing.
Finally, Astrid had stopped reading. She, instead, stared at the ceiling for a moment, then turned her head toward the side, toward her wall, its current brilliant image of a Los Angeles sunset over the ocean, and so many new thoughts running through her head.
Astrid wished they had stayed in Guanajuato, too.
Slowly, she rolled off the bed, leaving the letter, and went to get out the tarps and the white paint.
[[ oh, what's this? Time for some plot progression finally? Hell yeah it is! Anyway, bits and pieces, especially Ingrid's letter, taken from Chapter 31 of White Oleander by Janet Fitch. Door and post are open, with probably work-related SP caveat! ]]
It had been...months. Maybe even close to a year. And as much as Astrid's brain wanted to just tear it to shreds and toss it in the trash unopened, her heart could only allow her to rush up to her room as fast as her feet could carry her so she could immediately devour the words that awaited her on that onion-skin prison paper her mother had available to her.
( Dear Astrid, )
Astrid, now on her back on her bed in her quiet, lonely room, read through the letter again. And again, and again, and again, each time more voraciously, as if the spidery words, instead of satiating her hunger, only deepened it. There weren't words enough that could ever satisfy that hunger.
Alejandro the painter. Astrid remembered. Watching the line flow from his fingers, the movements of his arm. Was he a bad painter? It never occurred to her, as it never occurred to her that her mother could have felt excluded. Ingrid was beautiful there, she wore a white dress, and the buildings were ochre and yellow, her sandals crisscrossed like a Roman’s up her leg. Astrid traced the white X’s when she took them off. The hotel with screens and scrollwork around the door, the rooms open to the tiled walkway. You could hear what everybody was saying. When she smoked a joint she had to blow it out the balcony doors. It was a strange room, ochre, taller than it was square. She liked it, said there was room to think. And the bands of mariachis competed in the street below, the sound of concerts every night, from their beds under the netting.
Driving up from San Miguel de Allende in his toy-sized Citroen car, his shirt very white against his copper skin...
Was Ingrid admitting she made a mistake? If only she could admit it. Confess. Astrid might lie for her then, talk to her lawyer, take the stand and swear beyond a shadow of a doubt that she never. Perhaps this was as close as Ingrid would get to admitting a thing.
Finally, Astrid had stopped reading. She, instead, stared at the ceiling for a moment, then turned her head toward the side, toward her wall, its current brilliant image of a Los Angeles sunset over the ocean, and so many new thoughts running through her head.
Astrid wished they had stayed in Guanajuato, too.
Slowly, she rolled off the bed, leaving the letter, and went to get out the tarps and the white paint.
[[ oh, what's this? Time for some plot progression finally? Hell yeah it is! Anyway, bits and pieces, especially Ingrid's letter, taken from Chapter 31 of White Oleander by Janet Fitch. Door and post are open, with probably work-related SP caveat! ]]
