Chapter 113: Please Call Me Miss Jenkins
Claire stayed in Arianna’s room for a long time and accompanied her to listen to a record she had just bought yesterday. “Master Johnson should be back next weekend, and no one expected him to come back in advance.”
Hearing that, Arianna changed her sitting posture and asked, “Did he send me back yesterday?”
“Dad and Mom went to pick you up.”
“Okay.”
“Did you see him yesterday? Was he looking healthy? Don’t you think he is much better than those two hateful guys?”
“It was very dark yesterday. I didn’t see him clearly.”
“Oh.” The little girl was very disappointed.
“Do you have his photo?”
In fact, Arianna did see what Vince Johnson looked like last night, and she thought she had an illusion.
“He doesn’t like taking pictures, so I can’t even get stealthy about him.” Claire frowned. Then Claire suddenly jumped off the chair and opened the door and said, “Wait for me. I remember I do have a photo of him.”
After a while, Claire rushed back in and said, “I grabbed this photo by chance more than ten years ago, but his appearance has not changed much.”
In the old photo, a handsome young boy stood in front of the flag sculpture of a famous high school in the nation, dressed in a school uniform and wearing the school badge, his facial signatures so familiar to Arianna.
“Did he graduate from this high school?”
“Yeah. It’s amazing.”
Arianna flipped over the photo and handed it back to Claire, and said, “I am a little dizzy. I still need to lie down for a while.”
“Okay then, I’ll leave you to have a rest here. Oh, can I take a few flowers from this box of orchids? Last time I wanted to pick only one, and the gardener in the mansion would not allow me.”
“If you like it, take them all away.”
“Can I? This is from Master Johnson, and even his ex-girlfriend could hardly receive flowers from him.”
“I am allergic to flowers, please do me a favor.”
At night, Arianna woke up from her sleep, drank a little water, went to the window and counted the stars for half an hour, and opened the thick novel she used to help her sleep. After reading a lot of pages, she came back to sleep. She dreamed of her past.
Early the next morning, Claire went to a party with her high school classmates. Irene Lee, York Lee’s wife, invited Arianna to go shopping with her in the town.
Irene Lee was a lively and cheerful woman. She told Arianna a lot of local anecdotes and also mentioned the mysterious Johnson Family.
When talking about the legendary young Master Johnson, Irene said, “He is the grandson of the old lady, and he was brought up by the old lady in person. His personality is a bit strange, unpredictable, but nice to all of us.”
They bought quite many necessities in the town and two or three decorations. In the town, a new shop selling exotic items had been newly opened. Arianna bought a small bottle of perfume with an awesome smell, but it came in a jug-shaped blue frosted crystal glass bottle, small and cute. Irene was fooled into buying a Czech meteorite that was said to be capable of eliminating fatigue and headache, which was embedded in a silver chain, looking like an antique accessory. Irene said this chain could be helpful for her husband.
When they were driving back, Irene suddenly remembered that she should go to the main mansion of the manor to fetch something.
Arianna would not go inside as she didn’t want to encounter the old lady. Irene parked the car in the back of the mansion and pointed to the garden, and said, “You can help yourself take a good look at the views here. Just don’t go far away. Call me if you get lost again. I’ll be back soon.”
Arianna walked slowly along a cobbled path. A touch of cool breeze slowly came, carrying some subtle scent of plants. Arianna walked in the direction of the wind and saw a pool of lotus flowers. Another wind blew over, and the lotus leaves moved like layers of green waves, and the lotus flowers trembled like girl dancers dressed in white.
Soon the wind stopped, and the lotus pond returned to calm and became a still picture. Just before Arianna turned around and was about to leave, she saw a man sitting on the opposite side of the lotus pond, watching her for a long time already.
It’s Vince Johnson dressed in a white shirt. His smile outshined the lotus flowers.
Arianna stood in the same place for a while and then walked slowly around the crescent-shaped lotus pond and went over to him. She was an intruder to his domain. He could sit there still, but she could not find any excuse to ignore him.
Arianna only said “Hello” and then no more.
The man was calm, putting on a clean and harmless look, but everything around him was somehow suggesting a kind of rejection to anyone anytime.
“Have a seat, Miss Lee.” Vince looked up and pointed at the white stone chair opposite him. In between the white stone chairs was a white stone table. “Are you feeling better now?”Property © 2024 N0(v)elDrama.Org.
“Please call me Miss Jenkins.”
The man sat there, his eyes clean and clear, his mind digesting her words. Then he said again with a softer tone, “Have a seat, Miss Jenkins.”
Last night, her nerves were tortured to near the critical point in the darkness. At that time, she really thought she had seen the ghost of Travis Cooper, and that’s why she fainted.
But today, Arianna thought Vince was a little different from Travis. Travis’s skin was healthy and not pale most of the time, and he always put on a cold smile. This Vince, however, was quite the contrary.
In fact, Arianna could hardly tell what the men really looked like. When Travis Cooper was alive, she never looked at him carefully and never had any photos of him. And she tried hard to forget him when he was gone. Travis was just like a shadow in her heart, a vague image that she could hardly get rid of from her head.