I've been trying to write this at Spanish, but i guess it isn't working. I'll give it a try at English. Have 6 chapters already, I just need the translation.
English is not my first language, so I apologize for any typo or my grammar. I would appreciate if you tell me what can I do to get better.
Hope you enjoy it.
Elise kept her walkman between her legs as she read, by recommendation, Pride and prejudice. Even though it was splendidly well written, she was totally unable to understand why some girls from her class seems to like it so much. She gets it: it was a master piece of English literature. But that was due the fact that you get to hate Darcy at the same time Elizabeth hated him and, slowly, you fall in love with him as Elizabeth do so.
That was all. Nothing else. The book itself was a scam perfectly elaborated by Jane Austen for you to turn into a non-impartial judge of the story. To tell the truth, Elise couldn't conceive the idea that, after all the insults against her family, not to mention the actions against her sister, Elizabeth could simply forgive him why, exactly? Because he paid for Lydia's wedding?
Those were not enough objections to the plot for her to not enjoy the reading, tho, as she was hearing Avril Lavigne. The downloaded songs from the internet were playing in the walkman as she was barely moving her head to the music.
Suddenly, there was an interruption: two knockings behind her door announced Martha's presence, her mom.
"Yes?" Elise looked towards the door and spoke loudly so the woman knew she could get in.
"Patience is here" she was told after her mother appeared from the outside of the room.
The teenager wide opened her eyes. It was too late to take a shower when Elise remembered she had made plans to hang out with her best friend that evening.
"Please, tell her I'll be ready in a minute" asked at the same time she jumped out of the bed in order to get dressed. Martha could only do as told.
It took a little bit more than she expected for her to could get from stairs and meet Patience having a conversation rather protocolary with Martha. They talked about the kind of things you talk to the only family the girl you grew with had: how school was going, how the family was doing, which were your plans after graduating high school, if you both were planning to share a room at college… Elise was at the last step when her friend noticed her presence and turned to her so she can say hello.
"Good to know you don't forget about me" remarked sarcastically, which Elise was already used to. It wasn´t that Patience was not well acquainted to the idea that any change in her friend's schedule was send to a mental recycling bin, but she loved to take the chance to mock her. "You should consider to get an agenda."
"Are we leaving now?" she decided to ignore the comments. "We'll be back in a couple of hours, is that ok?" She asked for permission to her mom. Martha had told her daughter plenty of times she doesn't need to ask, she was always happy to see her leave her room and get out to have fun, but no matter how much she tried, Elise couldn't help but made a question out of her statement every single time.
"Sure" was her answer. "Take care of yourselves, girls."
Both of them nodded and crossed the door to the mall. The sun was unavoidable at 2:00 p.m., but girls didn't care about it. Every penny counted and taking the bus would take away a few coins from their pockets, so they rather walk. Plus, walking was the perfect chance to catch up after a week of not seeing each other, not to mention it was useful to compensate the food they would eat a few moments later. No exercise was too much when they could be together.
"So," Elise began "did you find anything interesting to do?" She referred to the week Patience spent at her grandparents' house.
"A few things, you know. We celebrated a birthday or two and, oh surprise, there's another pregnancy in the family. The usual."
"Seriously? Who is it this time?"
"Do you remember Ellen? My cousin who got married last summer?"
"The one whom dress got on fire? How could I possibly forget her?" Both of them burst out laughing.
They kept the small talk for a while before they arrived to the mall. The place was a little caffe in the last flour of the building. It was not too crowded and, definitely, the few clients that occupied the tables were not teenagers. Instead, people who get used to eat there enjoyed the calm and solitude offered by Catrina's.
The decorations looked not juvenile, but sober: the walls colors mixed brown and red and even the tables got a chess board painted on it. Everything seemed to be more accurate for retired elders than people like Elise or Patience. That was the best part of it, the girls decided. It was true they enjoyed louder restaurants and pizza places, but they simply can't stand being involved in any social ritual the other teenagers were used to. They got enough of their classmates at school and the simple idea of tolerate them at public places made them go sick.
In the other hand, their talk topics were a little bit… peculiar, to say the least. Sometimes, they wanted to talk about the issues they both got in their families, like the absence of Elise's father and the current pension sue she and her mom were trying to do. Patience, on her side, was not a big fan of people knowing about her esoteric interests.
In conclusion, there was a lot of reasons for they to seek for privacy now and then.
"May I take your order?" Asked the waitress not too long after they took seats.
"I would like to have some fries" answered Elise no need to see the menu "and an iced tea, please."
"It will be a cob salad and a chocolate milkshake for me, please"
"Alright" she confirmed the orders as write them down. Once she went to the kitchen, the girls felt finally free to chat. This was the moment Patience was waiting for. It has not passed two seconds of the waitress absence when the young girl made the pepper and the salt aside so the table could be clear, giving her enough space to distribute a few items. She took off from her bag a bunch of cards wrapped in a purple tissue.
"Pats… no" she said once she recognized the cards.
"Don't be lame. It is not the first time anyway."
"You're totally aware I do not like that kind of stuff. For your information, I want to major in chemistry at college and..."
"...and as a scientist you're not willing to believe in such things yada yada yada" interrupted her friend making a mouth gesture with her hand to imitate the babbling. "You don't need to believe it. It's not about that"
"What is this about, then?" she asked with faked curiosity.
"Think of this the same way you think of…" she stopped to consider the proper analogy "reading a book. Every time you read a book you're not worried about if it is true or not. That's not what makes it worth it."
"That's totally different. Books are fiction."
"I never said tarot was something real, I just said it was interesting to navigate in the results by pure curiosity. Have you never thought of future? Even if you know the prediction is untrue, it is fun."
"Ok, ok. You won". She conceded pretending to be bothered.
Patience extended the deck of cards so Elise could mix them and divide it in three groups. Once done, Elise gave it back to her friend and asked "how long I'm going to live?" as her first question, pretty much to bother Patience, who hated the transcendental-type-of-question and preferred the when-I'm-going-to-lose-my-virginity-type-of-question.
Her best friend stared disapprovingly and took off the first card. Immediately, her face went from the nuisance to the confusion. Not so sure about what was going on, she took the next card… and the next one… and the next one…
"It looks like…" Elise failed at pretending indifference and, suddenly wide opened her eyes and paid attention to whatever the girl in front of her got to say "... long. Too long, I dare to say."
"And you look so confused over this… why, exactly?"
"I can't see death anywhere. It seems like you will live enough so the cards didn't bother to talk about you dying"
"Good news, I guess."
"No-oh" Patience prolonged the syllable.
"How is that even possible?
"It's kinda weird... There's something dark around it. Maybe, if you ask another question, I could tell what is this about…"
Before they could keep going, they were interrupted by the arriving of the food they had ordered. The judgment in the waitress face made them feel like they were a couple of preteenagers caught on the act as watching porn. Patience smiled sheepishly and the girl let out a small giggle as if she were thinking "teenagers' stuff". She turned on her heels and walked away.
"Do you see? Everyone thinks this is hella weird."
"I'm guessing, then, you're not planning on asking a second question" she smiled and played to take back her cards from the table. Elise gave up and continued before Patience could take the tarot deck.
"How this year of school is going to be?" She said landing a second group of cards to her friend so it was implied she was playing because genuine interest and not because of Patience insistence.
"I thought so" she smiled triumphantly at the same time she took the first cards on the deck. Five of them were enough for her to look in total indignation. "You have a boyfriend and you didn't tell me."
"Ok, you went crazy already. I don't know what the heck are you talking about."
"You'll see, this card right here" she held one of the arcane between two fingers "says you're getting pregnant this year."
Elise threw the closest napkin at her best friend who couldn't stop laughing. Obviously, that part was bullshit made up just in order to piss her off. Both of them knew their esoteric activities had finished already at that point.
After that, it was just another day at the mall.
The night before the classes at the school began, Betty Groff was adjusting the syllabus for the assignments she was teaching that year. Plus, she was adding final touches to her fiancé's syllabus too. Both of them were working at the local high school and college by the time: she due her PhD in Biology and he due his MSc as an archeologist.
The main reason for her to help her boyfriend out was the fact that she knew how har a PhD thesis could be. Simon was doing that exactly. His work was focused to magic and religious thinking in ancient cultures and the sacred objects around the subject, that's why an archeological expedition was absolutely necessary during the last two months.
Betty didn't know how things went on her trip, she only knew he would be back soon with a lot of ancient artifacts they will keep at the house until, eventually, they turn into University's property.
Her thinking was interrupted when, from the hall, she heard the main door open. There was not too much work remaining, so it could wait; she had spent the las eight weeks waiting for Simon. She stood up and left the little room they were using as an office at home. Went to the Livingroom just to find a guy almost falling to the ground and, with him, a box filled with a bunch of priceless stuff. Yeah, she couldn't let that happen. Before a tragedy occurred, she put her hands beneath the box. It was pretty obvious that Petrikov was not well instructed at physics, otherwise, he wouldn't has taken the package by the sides instead of the lower part of it, so it was sliding to the ground. She helped him out so the box was placed gently on the flour, allowing them to kiss.
"I need you really need to shave."