"Where is she?"
Fantina Kai was frantic. She was standing right by the front door, her face against the window as she peered outside. The streets were dark, and the sky was black, with the twinkling stars starting to come out. The streetlamps were beginning to flicker on, casting shadows onto the gloomy streets. A few people had been outside, so far, but not a single one had been carrying a purple suitcase.
Fantina had come home about three hours ago, a smile on her pretty face. She couldn't wait to tell her daughter the great news about Sprinkles&Buttons. A world-wide chef had stopped in the shop today with his wife, and when he had tried the featured bowl, Molten Cake Crème, he'd fallen in love with the taste. He promised to come again next week with some of his crew to learn the recipe. Fantina wanted to tell her daughter about that, because Molten Cake Crème was originally the girl's idea.
When she had gotten home, a smile on her face, smelling like sugar and chocolate and vanilla, she had seen a red Ferrari parked in the driveway. Ignoring her feeling of dread, as she unlocked the door, Fantina found her twenty-two year old son sitting in the living room, reading the newspaper. Personally, she wasn't all that excited to see him, but she couldn't wait to see her daughter. When she asked him where she had went, he had replied,
"She served a tennis ball at me and then sped off."
Her son had upturning his head so that Fantina could see the dark bruise, in the shape of a tennis ball imprinted on his jaw. Her heart had started to race, and she shrugged, saying that her daughter would come back soon.
It's been three hours, and still no sign of the seventh-grader. The time was 9:45 p.m.
"Mateo – give me my cell phone!" Fantina called. She tried to keep the creeping panic from her voice.
"Here." She turned and Mateo, dressed comfortably in a loose black T-shirt and baggy black sweatpants, handed the red piece of metal into her hand. He then jogged over to the basement door, opened it, and disappeared before she could thank him. Not that she wanted to.
Flipping open the cell but never taking her eyes off the dark streets, Fantina dialed a number that she almost knew by heart. She then held the metal to one ear, with its dangling diamond hoops, and listened to the rings.
"Hello?" muttered a masculine voice, one that sounded like it was in the middle of something very important.
"Nanjiro? Is that you? This is Fantina Kai."
Instantly, the tone of the voice changed, and the person on the other end laughed. "Fantina – what a pleasure! How's everything going on your side?"
She didn't want to be rude, but she wasn't really in the mood to have a casual conversation. "Everything's great here, Nanjiro, thanks. I have to ask you a question. Is Cherrylea over at your place? Possibly playing tennis with either you or your son, I hope."
Now Nanjiro sounded a bit apologetic. "Actually, no – Lea's not over here."
"She's not there?" AS much as Fantina tried to keep the panic away, some crept into her voice and her head began to slowly spin around. "Oh, lord, this is not good…well, is your son there? Can I speak to him?"
"Sure, yeah, hold on," Nanjiro covered the mouthpiece with one hand, so that Fantina didn't hear anything, and then hollered, "Ryoma!"
A few seconds later, an irritated voice replied, "What?"
"Pick up the phone," Nanjiro instructed, "someone wants to speak to you."
Finally, Fantina heard a voice on the other end. "Ryoma Echizen."
"Ryoma!" She sighed in relief, running her free hand through her dark hair. "It's great to hear from you again. How are you? This is Ms. Kai."
There was silence, and inside his house, Ryoma paused the video game he was working on. He then muttered, "Who?"
"You don't know me? I'm Ms. Kai, Cherrylea's mother. Do you know who she is?"
"Ah. Cherry. Yeah, I do." Ryoma leaned against the headrest, closing his eyes. "Uh, I'm fine, thanks for asking. Ms. Kai, is something wrong? You sound a bit frantic."
"Actually, yes, there is something bothering me. Cherrylea hasn't come home yet, and I know that she and you and the Seishun tennis players came around eight hours ago, back from the cruise. Have you seen her?"
He thought for a moment, and then said, "Yeah, we talked a little before her brother arrived. And a few hours ago, one of my upperclassmen, Takeshi Momoshiro, and I were playing some street tennis and she joined in for a few games before taking off. You do know that she served a Twist Serve at Mateo today. It caught him right under the jaw."
"Yes, he showed me when I came home."
The phone was silent for a long moment on both ends, and then Ryoma muttered, "Cherry's a really positive person, and as much as I don't want to admit it, a great female tennis player. Good luck on finding her."
"Thank you, honey, I'll try." Fantina felt a warm smile spread over her face. He hasn't changed a bit – well, possibly a little sweeter than before, but… "Have a good night, Ryoma, and please, tell your father that I wish him all joyful thoughts."
"Sure." The line went dead.
Fantina snapped her cell shut, slipping it into the pocket of her jeans. She raked another hand through her messy black hair, wishing more than anything that she didn't look like the crazy, frantic, over-protective mother that many children had. All she wanted was for her daughter to come home, safe and sound. She and Cherrylea and Mateo would have a talk later.
The door to the garage opened, and in stepped a pre-teenage girl, a purple suitcase in one hand and a pair of black rollerblades in the other. A stylish red hat covered her black hair. She lightly kicked the door shut.
"Lea!" With a happy smile spreading over her face, Fantina ran over to her daughter and hugged her tight against her bosom, ignoring the girl's protests and attempts to get away. "Where have you been, young lady? I've called Nanjiro and asked Mateo and" –
"Is he here?" Forcefully, Cherrylea pulled herself away from her mother's arms. She let her suitcase and rollerblades fall to the ground, making a thud. She crossed her arms over the chest of her tight black tank-top.
"Nanjiro? Heavens, no."
"No, I meant Mateo."
Before Fantina could reply, the basement door opened and the blond male stepped out, his breath a little ragged and a little bit of sweat at the nape of his neck. He started to say something with a grin on his face, but when his eyes zeroed in on Cherrylea, they narrowed.
"You're home." Mateo didn't say it like a statement, but instead, he said it more like an accusation.
Quickly, Fantina jumped in, hoping to smooth the fur that was starting to get rippled. "Well, now that we're all here as one big happy family, I suppose we'll have dinner, which I cooked three hours ago. Cherrylea, it's your favorite – chicken rice curry with beef. By the way, Lea, you know your dish, Molten Cake Crème? A chef came in today and tried it and he said that he wants to" –
"Why are you here, Mateo?" asked Cherrylea coldly, regarding her brother with blank eyes and ignoring her mother. "I didn't think you'd be outta prison for another year, at the least. And how'd you know that I had just returned from the cruise?"
"Okay, first off – I didn't even know you were on a cruise. I just happened to be driving by, in my new Ferrari, on the way home when I thought I saw Nanjiro's son."
"His name is Ryoma. Ryoma Echizen, not Nanjiro's son."
"Yeah, whatever." Mateo ran a hand through his dark blond hair, ruffling it even more than it was before. "So I thought maybe I stick around to actually glimpse Mr. Samurai himself. But instead, who do I see climbing down from that black bus? Why, none other than Cherrylea Kai! I figured that I would take you home. But what do you do?"
He then tilted his chin upwards, to display the ugly, dark bruise of a tennis ball.
"I get this damn bruise imprinted into my chin! Do you think I want to walk around with a tattoo that says, I GOT MY ASS KICKED BY MY LITTLE SISTER, WHO USED A DAMN TENNIS BALL? No, that's not what I want. I can't believe you did that!"
"Watch your language," injected Fantina quietly.
"Shut up, Mateo," snarled Cherrylea, her eyes dark and her face suddenly in shadows that made her chocolate brown eyes seem harsh and unforgiving. "Maybe you should learn to tell when a person doesn't want you there anymore. You may have helped in the past, but now? I can't take the sight of you."
"Yeah?" Before either mother or daughter had a chance to react, Mateo had sprung forward; he now was grabbing her shoulders, pulling her face so close to hers' that she could smell alcohol on his breath. "Well, Cherrylea, maybe you should learn some manners, how to treat your brother, and lastly, you have to realize that I had been senseless at the time, so I didn't know that I was going to slaughter him!" He then brought his hand around and slapped her.
Cherrylea felt a sharp, sudden stinging pain flare up on her cheek, and her head swayed violently to the side as the world flashed red.
The house was strangely quiet. Fantina stared in shock, as she had just witnessed her son slap her daughter. Cherrylea held one hand against her cheek, holding every feeling and every comeback she wanted to give him. Mateo stood there, his breath still ragged. No one had ever slapped her before. Not Fantina, not Mateo, nobody.
Cherrylea was the first one to break from the trance. She bent down and picked up her suitcase, leaving her rollerblades where they were, discarded against the wall. She strided over to the closet and pulled out her navy blue coat, drawing it on. Then she walked back over to where her mother and brother stood, and opened the garage door, glancing over to say,
"It's better to forgive a soul than to take one."
He opened his mouth to protest, but thinking better of what effect his nasty comment would generate, he shut it as Cherrylea stepped into the garage, shutting the door quietly behind her. "Mom, I" –
"Save it," she snapped. Fantina felt nothing for her son. With a feeling of emptiness and despair, she made her way to the dinner table and sat down, picking up a silver fork and stabbing her food. "Your dinner is getting cold."
Mateo was silent for a moment, and then he shook his head. "I'm sorry. Really, I am."
"No, you're not. You're never sorry, and you never have been. I may not have been there to witness what you'd done that night, but I'm sure that poor Cherrylea has been scarred, all thanks to that one, drunken act. If you're going to act this way in my house, I want you out of here immediately. Now, come and eat your food. It's getting cold, and I will not tolerate the fact that I had to cook dinner for three, but only two are eating." The strange thing was that this was the first time Fantina had ever snapped or gotten angry at someone. Her vision got blurry for a moment, but when she blinked, it was back to normal. With a small, inaudible sigh, she forced the mouthful of cold rice curry down her throat.
