Heart of the Pink Meanie

Disclaimer: I have nothing to do at work today so this is how I filled my time. A little clichéd action and melodrama never hurt anyone, right?

“It is too hot to be doing this. Shouldn’t we have a little more siesta—we are on vacation?”

The woman either ignored or didn’t hear her companion’s whining. She was instead looking back and forth between the leather purse she had in her right hand, and the coral necklace that she had in her left. “I do not know which she’d like better. My sister is impossible! Hmm…?” She paused, biting her lip in a slightly rehearsed manner, letting her eyes flit over to her companion. “Well, I suppose the best thing to do is just get both and decide when we get home. I mean, I can just have one of them as a spare gift, or keep it, or something. Don’t you think that’s the best way to do it? Alan?”

Alan had been staring across the street, outside the market with a vacant expression that usually comes with intoxication. It was the only thing he was interested in at the moment. An empty bench. He took a step in the direction of his nirvana but before he could take another one something penetrated he trance. A high, piercing sound that he had become all too familiar with since getting on an airplane at O’Hare a two-weeks earlier. Escaping from the trance he also realized that he was being molested by his traveling companion.

“Where is it? Don’t you have it with you?”

Becoming fully coherent Alan finally responded. “What? What are you doing?” he said pushing her hands away.

“The dictionary, I need the dictionary. What have I been saying to you?”

“Oh, sorry” he said, though he just turned his attention back to the bench which was now endanger of being overtaken by a group of middle-aged women in matching hats. “I left it in the room. We haven’t really needed it.”

She turned back to her prospective purchases and he thought that now was his chance. He was just about to quickly say he’d just be across the street when she interrupted him. “Listen this guy doesn’t speak English and if I’m buying both of these I’m getting a package deal. Talk to him.”

“Nothing has changed since yesterday, Jessica. I still don’t speak Spanish! I’m going across the street, over by that fountain. When you’re ready to go back to the hotel come and get me.”

As he started to walk toward his bench he heard her yell to him “But how do you say discount?” and he turned to see the woman Jessica was trying to talk to, looking as exasperated as he felt. Alan turned back toward the bench, but in doing so crashed into someone and they both fell to the ground. Jessica was completely focused on a pair of earrings she had just discovered. Alan picked himself up and leaned down to help the man he had knocked down. The man was rather short, and old enough for Alan to feel really guilty for knocking him down.

“I am so sorry. My girlfriend is insane and shopping and apparently angry at me for taking Russian instead of Spanish. Are you okay?” Alan asked, as they both got firmly on their feet. The old man stared blankly back at Alan, looking slightly scared. “Sir, are you alright?” Alan waited a few more seconds for the old man to answer but he said nothing, his eyes just looked back at him, occasionally darting around the marketplace, as if he was looking for someone. The old man’s lack of response, and Asian appearance made Alan think that he might be facing yet another language barrier. He started looking around the marketplace for someone who might be missing an old Asian man, when finally he got an answer to his questions.

“I’m okay,” said the old man with the slightest trace of a Japanese accent.

“Are you sure? Can I do anything to help you?”

“No, I just—I need to…”

But before Alan could hear what the man needed to do, someone nearly crashed into him. When Alan saw who had almost tackled him, he was surprised that he hadn’t seen her coming. A woman a good bit shorter than him stood at his left. She was dressed completely in black including a black hat that did little to obscure the almost neon pink of her hair.

“There you are. We need to go. Now.” She seemed to look right through Alan as she talked quietly to the old man. She grabbed the old man’s arm, brushed past Alan and before he knew it, the woman and the old man were gone. Alan spent a few moments looking around, thinking such an odd couple would be easy to spot, but he had no luck. Instead he proceeded to his bench, still safe from what he now saw was a group of lesbian retirees.

***
On the other side of the marketplace the old man and the woman were speeding down a side street, then into an alley, and then continuing down another street. They finally came to a crowd of people watching some street acrobats, and blended in with them.

“What happened? I told you to stay right beside me!”

“You were moving too fast. I was only a couple of steps behind and then you were gone! You still have it don’t you?” The man had a desperate look on his faced as he asked.

“Yes, but we need to be somewhere more secluded. I got that guys wallet, lets see if he has a hotel key inside.” She pulled out what looked like a white credit card, with a hotel name on it. “Good, it’s not far.”

The two of them sped through the streets as evening came on, her steering him through crowds and crosswalks. They entered the hotel lobby and she made for the elevators like she’d been there a dozen times before. Third floor. Room 316. She slid the card in the slot, the light turned green, and they were inside the room. The old man closed and locked the door behind them. They both sat down at the table in the living room area. The old man pushed some of the clutter, which included a Spanish-English dictionary, to the side. He stared at the woman who was much younger than him, with apprehension and anticipation.

“Okay, now lets see it.”

She pulled a small, almost flat box the size of a playing card and slid it across the table to him. He held the box, almost reverently for a full minute before he put it down on the table and opened it. Inside were two oddly shaped pieces of metal with engraving all over them, bronze perhaps. They seemed to fit together, making up about two thirds of a complete circle. The old man looked up at the woman sitting across from him.

“Thank you. Thank you so much. You’re the only one who could do this. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.”

“You don’t have to repay me, you took care of my fee long before today. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been here.” She got up from the table and walked over to the window watching the last of the sunset. But the old man followed her.

“No, you don’t really understand. You don’t know what this means.” He was closer to her now. He grabbed both her hands and stood there staring at her. “Thank you. Thank you.” For the first time the woman looked unstrung. She didn’t know how to react to his gratitude but she saw something out of the corner of her eye that saved her.

On the street below Alan and Jessica, both heavily burdened with packages, were walking toward the awning below the window that marked the entrance to the hotel lobby.

“They’re coming back to the room. We have to go.” She said it quickly as she pulled her hands from the old man’s. “You go on, just do what we’d planned and you’ll be home soon.” She took out Alan’s wallet, removed about half of the cash from it, as the old man walked toward the door. Before she knew what had happened she called out “Be careful” and the old man turned and smiled at her as he went out the door. She put the clutter on the table back in the state they had found it, adding Alan’s wallet to the mix. Then she exited the room herself and headed for the stairs, thinking how different it was to work with someone who at least seemed like a good guy. She really hoped the old man would be okay.