Dial - Season 1 - Episode 67

4 years ago

Dial - Season 1 - Episode 67

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She whipped up a delicacy with noodles and shredded chicken sauce.

Basically all I had in the kitchen were noodles, frozen meat and some packets of spices. I was really not fond of cooking. My father had been a marvellous cook, and most of my happiest moments had been spent inside that kitchen helping him cook.

Dede served the food at the huge dining area.
I had never eaten there since my old man died, but sitting with her that evening and eating was suddenly a wonderful experience for me.
She was beautiful, thoughtful, and ate like a human being. I was used to women eating as if their mouths didn’t want the food, or that their hands were unwilling to put food in their mouths.
The art of eating daintily, chewing softly with mouth closed and dabbing gently at the corner of the lips with dainty napkins or tissues always filled me with an inner resentment.

Dede was not that type, though.

She twirled her noodles into huge lumps that I thought could not fit into her mouth, and then she opened her mouth and chomped down on them and ate as if she were really hungry. Perhaps, the best part of the dinner happened when, after eating every tiny piece of noodle, she was left with a little gravy in the bowl.
She stood up and went to the kitchen and, returning shortly with a bit of sliced bread, began to mop the gravy with the bread and stow it into her mouth with renewed relish.

She stopped eating halfway and looked at me, then scowled.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked quietly.

“Can I have a piece of bread too?” I asked politely, striving to keep the laughter out of my voice.

She broke the bread into two, and tossed me one half.

Just like that.

She tossed it through the air to me.
I caught it, and then I began to laugh, and she laughed too.

And for a very brief moment she made me forget that I was becoming an old man in my late twenties!

She was such a great human being to have around!

***

After washing the bowls and stashing them she came back to the living area.
“A little problem, Yao,” she said. ‘I didn’t know I was going to spend the night here. I’ll need some things, if you don’t mind. Things I have to buy.”
“Let me show you to your room first,” I said and stood up. “Then, if there’s something else you might want, I’ll gladly take you to town.”
“I’ll definitely need things you can’t provide, Yao,” she said levelly. “So yes, show me the room, and afterwards I’ll have to go to town.”
I didn’t argue with her.

We rode the elevator to the topmost floor of the mansion, which was three floors up. It dawned on me, as we walked along the luxurious corridor, that I had not come here in a very long time, years, actually.

I racked my head but I couldn’t remember the last time I had ridden the elevator to the top floors. Maybe it had been on one Christmas eve when my father and I had gotten drunk on the roof, and I had descended one floor down and just picked a room and slept off the booze.
Shortly afterwards, my father died, and I had never come up here again. My favourite spot was the rooftop pool area. I loved the view from the top, and I loved the luxurious layout, but none of these was the actual lure for my deep attachment to the rooftop. The truth was that I had spent most of my happiest moments with my father on that rooftop, and the memories always refreshed me. It always felt like I could feel my old man’s presence on the rooftop.

So, I took Dede to the Guest Floors and showed her into one of the luxurious rooms on the fourth floor. She entered and came to a complete stop as the sheer level of luxury hit her.

“Wow!” Dede breathed as she walked forward slowly, dreamily, and stopped in the middle of the room just looking around.

The guest floors always had that effect on people.

My father, who had known real poverty as a young man, before building himself up into a multi-millionaire, had hired an expensive interior decorator to design the guest room floor of the mansion. Housing ten different rooms, each was as exquisite as it was breath-taking.

“This is the most beautiful room I have ever been in, Yao,” she said, her voice hushed, and I smiled humourlessly at her.

I walked past her and slid open a glass partition that led to the inner bedroom.
“Please, come here for a moment, Dede,” I said in my gentlest voice.
She was still looking around at the splendour, but she eventually entered the bedroom and then came to a stop. She looked at the huge bed, la!d with an incredible combination of white and pink sheets, the elaborate awning above it, and then she took a look at me.