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The Other Side of Town

Chương 1: Chapter One

It was his dream house, really. Five bedrooms, five and a half bathrooms, with a beautiful open kitchen with smooth white marble countertops and an attached living room that seemed almost incomplete without the 75 inch flatscreen TV that seemed to be awaiting its glorious reception into the house, only to be ignored for the smaller, more superior, smartphone in a matter of a few weeks.

What he would have done to put Mami in a house like this, Dante thought to himself as he installed one of the door casings of the first guest room on the second floor, but alas, a couple months from now the only time he'd ever see this house is through his beat up pickup truck's dusty windows on his way to the next plot where he'd probably be building a house of even more grandiose that look eerily similar to this one.

Dante had been lost in his thoughts while performing the mundane job when he had heard the unusual sound of a car pull into the brand new driveway that hadn't been there a week ago. It was only unusual because the entire crew was there already. They wouldn't have dared do anything that might have put their job on the line, even if it was being a couple minutes late to work.

Maybe he was curious about who had come to the site or maybe he was tired of all the incessant remeasuring that came with installing the door casing, but Dante decided to take a little break and looked out of the windows of the first guest room just as a sleek black BMW had powered down on the driveway.

He expected a tall built man in a fit suit to emerge from the vehicle like one of those car commercials that made his cousin Rosa choke on her soda when they watched a fútbol match together, but instead saw a short stout sweaty man with hair the shape of a horseshoe weasel out of the car.

A woman, presumably his wife, came out of the passenger seat. She was nearly a head taller than the man and was wearing what could best be described as a shiny fabric wrapped around her body and was wearing a lot of gold. Like, a lot.

Dante assumed they were Indian, or "South Asian", if he wanted to be politically correct, by her clothes, her jewelry, and the red dot on her forehead. It wasn't surprising, a lot of the people who moved into the posh neighborhoods in this area were those rich Indian, doctors and engineers who had been specially shipped overseas to work at multimillion dollar companies.

He immediately knew, however, that whoever was in the backseat of the car was a whole other story just by the white chunky sneaker that had popped out from behind the car door.

Dante's theory was proven correct as the rest of the woman appeared from the vehicle wearing a red off the shoulder blouse with a blue jean skirt. She was fairly attractive but most likely too young for him, with golden dusky skin and plump pink lips, but there was something about her eyes… they had a sort of indescribable weight behind them.

She reminded him of the girls in his own neighborhood, but there was something different about her, more mature. She and her mother walked into the house while her father started taking pictures of the bricks, looking for the smallest misplacement to complain about.

He approached Dante's supervisor Alejandro, or Alex as he was known on the site, wanting to start an argument over the week's delay of construction. "Sir we understand your complaint, but bad weather has caused some minor delays in construction," Alex replied calmly like he'd been trained to when talking to difficult owners.

Dante chuckled because he knew exactly what Alex wanted to tell the man, which included sticking some not so nice things up some not so nice places, but the last time he did that, he ended up getting kicked off his project and got moved to a completely different neighborhood.

Dante called it lucky that Alex even got to keep his job at all, but you couldn't just pick talent like Alex off the streets. Besides, Alex had been the picture of professionalism after that incident.

Dante had been so caught up watching the encounter between the two men that he almost didn't hear the girl with the chunky white sneakers knock at the unfinished door. He turned around to the girl looking at him like she was expecting something, but not exactly in a condescending way. More like a, "what now?" face.

Dante instinctually lowered his gaze and made his way out.

The girl, looking embarrassed and a little panicked as he tried to squeeze past her, raised her hands, shaking them in front of her, trying to stop him. She hadn't reacted fast enough though because the distance between the two now was too close for comfort, "You don't have to go, you look busy", she stuttered, trying to explain her actions.

Dante looked down at the girl with amusement. He pointed to the door and the equipment scattered across the floor, some that could do serious damage. The girl followed the direction of his finger and her cheeks flushed red with realization. She quickly moved out of the way and Dante went back to work on the door, but he found himself making quick glances at the girl, checking up on her every few moments.

She had approached the same windowsill Dante had been at only minutes ago and noticed the argument going down on the driveway. The girl just rolled her eyes as if thinking "this again?".

She looked around the spacious room that was about the same size as Dante's kitchen and sighed with exasperation, almost like she wasn't happy that she would be moving into the house of Dante's dreams in just a matter of a few months.

He reminded himself that maybe this was small in comparison to her old house. Maybe her old room was as big as the kitchen downstairs. He shouldn't even be thinking about this random girl's previous living situation! He was here to do a job and get paid.

Dante pulled out the nail gun and aimed it carefully on the door. He pulled the trigger and smiled at the satisfying noise of the gun.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the girl jump from the unexpected sound. She seemed to be more frazzled by the sound than expected. Then, Dante realized from the way the girl was holding her chest that she thought an actual gun had gone off.

He showed her the nail gun as if to say "Hey, it's just a nail gun" although a nail gun could do the job if you really needed it to.

She rested her gaze on the nail gun for a moment before returning to look out into the sea of sold plots waiting to begin construction. Dante went in for the second nail but it didn't work.

"Dammit" Dante muttered to himself, realizing the gun was out of nails. He put his stuff on the ground and climbed down the spiral stairs to find Freddie, who always seemed to have everything you needed when you needed it. "Yo Freddie, hit me up with some ammo," Dante said, finding Freddie in the kitchen overseeing the newbies installing the cabinets.

Freddie pulled out his iconic toolbox and slid him the pack of nails across the floor, "I gotchu brother" he said playfully. The woman from the car wearing the heavy amount of gold emerged from the master bedroom and the entire crew went into "white mode".

Freddie got off the floor and started helping the trainees install the cabinets. Dante gave Freddie a quick thank you gesture and walked back up the spiral stair. In the distance, he could hear Freddie instructing the newbies in a tone so white it could have been British.

Dante was about to get back to nailing the door casing when he heard harsh hushed talking coming from the room. He peeped into the room and saw the girl dancing in the room to music coming out of her wireless headphones.

She was mouthing along to the lyrics of a song from a language he didn't know and her black wavy hair with brown highlights bobbed up and down to a beat Dante couldn't hear.

Her performance was cut short by her mother's heavily accented voice calling her down, "Nandita! Come down now, we are leaving!"

The girl, Nandita, pulled her phone out to press pause and practically rammed into Dante who was just a few inches away watching the charming display. Her cheeks flushed red once again as she realized from his knowing grin that he had seen her little spectacle.

She pushed past him and almost tripped while running down the spiral stairs. Dante made a mental note to make sure there was nothing wrong with the stairs before returning to his post at the window watching the family pull out, leaving black tire marks on the brand new driveway.