When Carlos left the meeting room, he took along with him the postcard that had magically changed his mood. As soon as he stepped out of the room, noisy sighs of relief filled the space; some executives almost cried out gratefully, especially the planning department.
"Phew! Thank God! We survived!" one of them exclaimed. "Not just that! Each of us gets twice our pay this month! Isn't this great?" someone responded excitedly.
Back in his office, sitting leisurely in his chair, Carlos couldn't help but re-read the words on the back of the postcard. Before he knew it, a smile had appeared on his face.
When he had finally savored the words long enough, he opened a folder on his desk and carefully put the postcard in the middle of it. It was made of poor quality paper, but it was his treasure nevertheless.
'Looks like this woman has started to take the initiative, ' he thought.
In Southon Village
It was getting dark. Debbie was jogging when she heard some noise ahead of her, which sounded like two people were having sex.
It was awkward, so she stopped her run and stayed away from them.
The reception was usually awful in the village. Unfortunately, she got signals at the spot she was at that moment and her phone started buzzing in her pocket. It was on vibration, so it didn't disturb the couple.
She hid behind a big tree to take care of the call. Panting for breath, she took out her phone and saw the familiar number.
Tears threatened to roll out of her eyes. 'This grumpy, hateful man! He has finally decided to call me!' she thought, gratified and angry. After wiping her moist eyes, she swiped her finger on the screen to answer the call, but she did not speak first. Their stupid fight was still fresh in her mind. "What are you doing?"
Carlos asked when she refused to say anything. His tone was flat. There was neither rage nor affection.
Debbie was mad because she was disappointed. This wasn't the attitude she had been expecting from him. She wanted to throw a tantrum, but she couldn't find a good excuse. "Having fun," she said, after a long pause.
Despite her sullen tone and short answer, Carlos smiled when he heard her voice. "I got it," he said.
"Huh?" She was perplexed. 'Got what?'
"The love letter you wrote me."
'What? What love letter? I never wrote him any love letter. This fact-twisting capitalist!' Blushing, she corrected him, "It wasn't a letter. It was a postcard." She wouldn't write him a love letter and embarrass herself.
The village head's son had given her some postcards with the landscape of the village on them. She filled the little space with her scribble and had asked the young man to help her send them. Since the village was so remote, she was surprised that Carlos had even received the postcard.
But for Carlos, that postcard was a love letter from her, whether she admitted it or not.
Unwilling to be fixated on such a trifling matter, he moved on. "How are you doing these days?" he asked, his voice full of concern.
Debbie turned her head to listen to the two lovebirds who seemed to have gotten more passionate. 'It's freezing cold outside. Why do they have to do it here? These people are so freaking weird.'
She got up and retraced the path while holding her phone to her ear. "Not so good," she answered honestly.
These past few days had been the harshest days of her entire life. The temperature dropped to at least ten degrees below zero at night. It was so cold that stepping out the door of their designated house was a struggle.
"Hmm." Her answer was more or less what he had anticipated.
Carlos hung up without another word.
'So typical! Would it kill him to talk some more?
He hardly spoke three lines.'
Debbie went back to her room, with a mad frown on her face. She couldn't stop thinking about Carlos. At last, she decided to text him. "Was there a reason why you called me?"
"Yes." Again, a single-word answer. Debbie cursed him a hundred times in her head. "And? What was it?" she asked, trying to be patient. She was expecting a sweet response despite knowing that she might not get any.
"I wanted to know if you were okay."
That was it! That was all she needed to hear--to know that he cared. Her eyes reddened as she read his message. "I...I'm not okay." She missed him beyond what words could express. She missed his voice, his hugs, his tenderness.
Carlos might not have been too busy because he replied very quickly, "I'm relieved."
A hundred question marks flashed across Debbie's mind.
'He's relieved to know that I'm not okay? What does he mean?
Is he happy that I'm unhappy?! Why does he hate me so much?'
She was too angry to continue talking to him, but what he had said lingered on, bothering her immensely. The more she thought about it, the angrier it made her. "I hope you have a good time in Y City, Mr. Huo."
"Okay."
Debbie's eyebrows furrowed while a thousand angry exclamation marks jumped around her head. 'Aargh! This man is so irritating!'
It had been overcast for many days in a row. The next day, the sky finally cleared up.
Gus sat alone, enjoying the sun. Gail was helping an old lady pick out some tea leaves. Others were playing "Drop the Handkerchief" with the children. Jared was one of them. Since he was so tall, it was funny to see him running among the kids. When he started running around the circle, it set everybody off.
The children laughed while shouting, "Jared, tag Debbie! We want to see Debbie catch you."
The kids knew how fast Debbie could run. Many of them even ran with Debbie around the village in the mornings.
Jared refused as he panted, "You're so mean. I won't tag Debbie. I'll tag you."
When he dropped the handkerchief, the kids screamed, "Aaah! Debbie, Jared tagged you! Catch him!"
Debbie looked back. The handkerchief was indeed drooped right behind her. To make the kids laugh, she stood up and challenged Jared, "You, big guy! I'll catch you and make you sing 'Old MacDonald' in the middle d the circle."
Then she started chasing Jared. To her surprise, he ran away from the circle, and she had to run after him. When Debbie was finally close enough to grab him, Jared stopped and pointed his finger into the distance and said, "Debbie, look!"
Everyone was automatically curious and stopped playing at once to look towards where he was pointing at. A little boy ran towards them and shouted cheerfully, "Look! So many cars have come to our village! The cool ones. I've only seen them on TV. What are their names?"
Jared named the cars as he pointed at them one by one, "Emperor, Bentley, and that's Rolls-Royce Phantom."
The boy jumped in excitement. "Right, Lice-Rice! Pepper, Shorty, Butterball! Let's go take a look. We've never seen those cars before."
'Emperor? Is it Carlos? Debbie wondered. Then the familiar car and it's license plate came into view.
The ten-meter-away entrance of the village was on a low terrain. The whole village could see the cars parked there.
Emmett got out of the car in an elegant manner. He immediately spotted Debbie amount the others. After a few incidents that had taken place in the past, Carlos' employee had started seeing his cute and sweet wife as their savior. Emmett waved at her excitedly.
The villager's didn't know who he was waving at, so they all waved back at him warmly.
Debbie only looked at Emmett briefly. Her eyes quickly shifted to the back window of the Emperor. She could sense Carlos' tense gaze even with the window rolled up.
'He's here, I'm sure.
Has he come to take me home?
He always makes me mad and then try to make up for it by doing something nice.' With that thought in mind, she looked at the car expectantly, and all her anger was gone.