Valérie

By Carlos Díaz del Castillo

Set in Montreal, Canada, in the early eighties, Valérie tells the story of an attractive girl, who has had to fight against her shyness, her fellow students, and her lack of financial resources and injustice to get out of the situation in which she finds herself. Her great dream is to become a commercial pilot, and to achieve this she must put her skills to the test in her work, study and relationships with those around her, all this in the midst of an environment that will lead her to discover her first love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BadPress
• Release date: Jul 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9781667406534

Book preview

1

Valérie knew that she could not stop running, if she did, her pursuers would catch up with her and they would have no mercy with her. However, running in heels was not comfortable, and it represented an imminent danger to the health of her ankles. So without thinking twice, she got rid of her shoes by throwing them to the side of the poorly lit street that served as an escape route for the two men and the woman who would not hesitate to leave some good bruises on her delicate face, in addition to a few broken bones. Her only hope was to reach the main avenue. Once there, she it would be protected by passers-by and customers of bars and restaurants that had not yet closed at the time. She was grateful that summer was just around the corner and the temperature was more than pleasant, otherwise her bare feet would have felt the rigors of snow or puddles of water that spring rains used to leave behind. Her race was quite agile, and the high speed that she carried from her made it take her no more than fifteen seconds to achieve the long-awaited avenue. She turned to look at those who wanted to end her and, luckily for her, she managed to perceive that the girl she was been left behind along with one of the men, and it was only the other, the one who seemed to be stronger and more athletic, the one who continued in her pursuit. In the middle of her desperate race, she was about to collide with a young oriental couple, who fortunately had enough agility to avoid them. It was a shame that she had to wear the prettiest dress she had ever had in barely sixteen years of her life to have to flee from a group of people who would never forgive her for the supposed fact of having wanted to take advantage of a her friendships. She noticed the way people looked at her: it was logical that she did not were unnoticed seeing a beautiful teenage girl, wearing her elegant seawater green party dress, running barefoot down a central Montreal Street was not an everyday thing. What they did not know is that it was all the fault of a confusion. The man who continued to haunt her attended the same school as her. His name was Pierre, who a few minutes earlier had heard from one of his friends that Valérie had tried to force a girl named Silvie to kiss her. This had happened in the women room of the party room. Silvie was Pierre's girlfriend. The supposed witness, somewhat past drinking, had not differentiated the door to the men's bathroom from the women's, and when he realized that he was in the wrong place, he also noticed a girl with light brown hair, dressed in a seawater green suit, holding tightly and trying to convince Pierre's girlfriend to let herself be kissed. Without stopping to confirm whom it was, the last drinking boy had returned to the main hall to tell what was supposedly happening with Valérie. It didn't take long for Pierre to find out about the harassment his girlfriend was being subjected to, and without waiting for the answers to the questions he never asked, he went to the bathroom in search of the alleged aggressor with the firm intention of teaching her, at point of blows, that women should kiss with men, and men should kiss with women. The coincidences had decided to get together, and before the athletic boy, followed by two of his good friends, reached the door of the women's bathroom, he found himself face to face with Valérie, who came from the area where the changing tables are located, after having left her small purse there, which was already beginning to be a hindrance, especially when she decided to go out dancing. The face with the poor girl's panicky expression could not have been more shocking to see that her classmate became her attacker and directed a fist directly to her face while shouting: We don't want weird women in this school. Fortunately, Valérie knew how to avoid the blow by ducking at the right moment, causing her attacker to continue straight and slam his hand against the wall, which she took advantage of to start running and leave the room through the first door she had found, precisely the it led to the dark alley where she had been forced to abandon her shoes. Definitely, her luck had decided to abandon her. Valérie had been in the bathroom seconds before putting her purse on the changing tables, and like the past young man with drinks, she too had witnessed what was happening there. It was about a girl that she had never seen in her life, who did not belong to her school, and who, wearing a dress quite similar to hers, and with a cut and tone of hair almost identical to hers, was doing her best to convince Pierre's girlfriend to allow herself to be kissed. It was evident that the harassed girl was not in her right mind, but Valérie had decided not to say anything, and she had preferred to leave the bathroom as soon as possible and continue on her path.

Now she was grateful that she had belonged to the school's athletic team in previous years, or else she would not have been able to achieve the speed that allowed her to flee from her pursuers in the middle of the crowd that filled the Rue Sainte-Catherine that Saturday night.

She had not traveled more than a block by the time that the kind of screams you hear when someone is the victim of great pain reached her ears. She turned to look without stopping running, reaching to observe how the burly pursuer seemed to have stumbled and found himself with her face glued to the asphalt. Although everything seemed to indicate that the danger had lessened, it would be insane to stop now, so she continued to advance through the crowd without slowing down in the least the speed that she had maintained since leaving the party hall. She was not the best way to end the evening prom, but she was grateful that with the exception of the graduation ceremony, she would not have to see the faces of most of her classmates again. She managed to go one more block before realizing that neither the athletic boy, nor her companions, were still in pursuit of her. She slowed down, but she continued walking through the crowd without letting her guard down and not knowing exactly what step to take. Her purse and her jacket were in the changing rooms in the party room, but returning to that place would mean putting herself back in the hands of those who wanted to kill her. Her wristwatch indicated 1:30 in the morning, which gave her half an hour to look for Gail, her best friend and the one in charge of taking her to her house in the car that her father lent her. She surely she would have already found out about what was happening and would probably be looking for her on the outskirts of the room. She would have to get there if she did not want to walk the fifty streets that separated her from her house walking on her bare feet.

She stopped less than a hundred yards from the hall entrance, half her body hidden behind a lamppost. From there she was able to observe how several of her companions began to leave the place. In the middle of them, she managed to distinguish Pierre's two friends, those who had been part of the chase, who seemed to be quite restless. They did not stop looking around, they talked with other colleagues, they came and went in the middle of the crowd and their faces looked worried. Not far from them was Gail, in her dark blue dress, gray jacket, and black heels, holding in her hands not only her purse, but also what Valérie managed to distinguish as her jacket and her purse. She never had a good friend left over, she thought before she heard behind her back the accelerated footsteps and the screams of the man who had been chasing her. She turned seconds before Pierre pounced on her, once again being lucky enough to dodge him at the last moment. Everything seemed to indicate that the man would not rest until he had finished with her. She did not hesitate to run from there taking advantage of the fact that, thanks to the force with which her attacker had charged her, he had ended up crashing into the post that had served as a hiding place. It was clear that his movements were being affected by his intoxicated state. For something good the liquor has to serve, was what she thought as she fled in the opposite direction of the room. She meters later she turned to look to discover that the young man stood looking around her, most likely trying to decipher the whereabouts of her victim. She did not want to stay and wait for the eyes of the attacker to discover her, and she decided to accelerate her pace until she felt that she was running faster than she was when she had won the interscholastic competition of the hundred-meter sprint. Trying to avoid the bodies of the people, she it occurred to her that the best thing would be to enter one of the bars without her pursuer noticing her, and wait there until the man was tired of looking for her and decided to give up. She noticed a small red door with a sign on top that read Tinkos Bar, which was opened to let out a couple of boys who could not stop laughing. Valérie was agile enough to grab the door before it closed. Seconds later, she found herself in a narrow corridor dimly lit by a pair of red spotlights. She came to the end of it to meet a tall, fat man guarding a second door, who stared at her from head to toe.

You cannot come in here, it is obvious you are not old enough to do so, and you do not wear shoes were his words of welcome.

Mister please help me, I just need to hide for a few minutes from my pursuers Valérie said on the verge of tears as she tried to normalize the rhythm of her breathing.

I do not see anyone behind you, said her fat man, looking over her head ", and he already knew that excuse for trying to get in, trying to invent something new.

I'm serious, I was at the school prom a few blocks from here, and some drunks have gotten mad at me and want to hit me  Valerie said pleadingly and then turned to look in the direction of the door through which had entered.

For me, you're the drunk ... If you show me an ID that says you're eighteen I'll let you pass, otherwise I advise you to get out of here as soon as possible said the man with a mocking smile.

Valérie concluded that it would be useless to continue begging this character. Asking her to call the police would only make her lose patience with the kind of consequences she did not want to imagine. The only thing she had left was to pray that when she left there her pursuers were not waiting for her. She walked slowly the way she had come until she reached the small door. She hesitated a couple of seconds before opening it, and finally did so before she could arouse the fat man's fury. She noticed that the street was beginning to vacate, making her more vulnerable. She looked around her, took a deep breath, and put her feet on the platform. She knew it was impossible to try to get back to the entrance to the party room. She only had to go home, but her question was: how was she going to do it? She could have sneaked into the subway, but it was no longer operating at that time. The solution was not to take a taxi, all of her money had remained in her purse, and she knew perfectly well that her mother would not have any to pay for it, besides that she would win a good fight for getting into trouble. Everything indicated that she only had to walk. She calculated that it would take a little over an hour and a half, that is if she had had her tennis shoes, but she was not sure how long it would take her to do it barefoot, as well as the problems this could cause. She only had to start walking; it was not going to be easy at all, but until that moment in her life, she had not been at all.

2

The heat that her body had generated when trying to flee from her pursuers was lost as she advanced along the platforms of the dark streets. The solution could be to increase the speed, but after fifteen blocks traveled for just over thirty minutes, the fatigue was beginning to show. The distance that she had to overcome was less than six kilometers, a journey that in her friend's car, Gail hers, would have taken between fifteen and twenty minutes to complete, but that in the current circumstances forced her to walk for at least another hour. Only these things happen to me, what is my fault that this guy's girlfriend was more drunk than a sailor on a day of rest and allowed himself to be kissed by that woman?, Were the thoughts that accompanied her as she tried to keep your eyes focused on the pavement trying to avoid stepping on any object that could hurt you. Fortunately the cleaners had done her job and she hadn't come across anything that ended up sending her to the hospital's emergency room so far.

For the first few minutes, she had tried to stay on the avenue, presuming that her spaciousness and lighting would give her some security. However, it did not take long for several subjects to appear, less than a hundred meters away, who due to their clothing and her attitude made her, feel vulnerable, so she preferred to continue her way through the small streets that crossed the residential neighborhoods. They were much darker, but somehow the absence of people made her feel more secure. If something presented itself, she would have the option of knocking on the door of one of the houses for help. The soles of her feet began to feel the hardness of the asphalt, and although on some occasions, being at home and around, she preferred to walk barefoot, what she was experiencing now could not be compared with the softness of the carpet in her home or the grass. Of your garden. She tried to take advantage of the smooth surface of the patios of the houses that were in the way of her, only to discover that the cold of the grass at that hour was worse than the hardness of the asphalt of the street. She tried to think of other things knowing that if she concentrated on the pain, which became more and more evident, it would be impossible for her to continue. However, there came a time, after more than forty-five minutes walking, when she decided to sit down and take a little rest on a small wooden bench that she found at the edge of a garden. She felt so miserable that she wanted to burst into tears but she knew she had to be strong, that she would not get anything out of her by shedding a few tears when she was barely halfway there. She was so tired that she knew that she would not be able to start running as she had earlier, if she were to present herself to some kind of danger. Ten minutes passed before she could muster enough strength to continue her tortuous path. She felt the tingling in her legs, typical of those who have developed some demanding physical activity. She once again recalled her athletic days, concluding that if she had not been part of the track team, she would have been unable to resist. Ten blocks later, as she passed an attractive two-story house with its dark blue painted walls, a small car pulled up right where she stood. A boy in jeans and a white polo shirt quickly got out. His hair was short and black and the way he walked was that of a drunkard.

"Hi beautiful pri... pri... ncess, what, what brings you here this night?

He not only walked like a drunk, he also talked like one. Valérie was not sure to answer him or ignore him. He seemed like a good person, he revealed around eighteen years old and his appearance was quite attractive.

I was celebrating my birthdaysss, I have eighhh-teennn and I was able to enter a barrr finished saying before the car that he had left started up again. He tried to get closer to her, but his high-intoxicated state made it difficult for him to try to move forward. Valérie looked around her, noting that they were the only two people awake on the entire block. Seeing the handsome young man in that state gave her the assurance that it would be easy for her to run away from him if necessary.

Do you live around here? It occurred to her that it would be better to talk to him.

No princesssz, I just got out of my friend's car to greet you the drunk replied before laughing.

Very funny... She said, taking a couple of steps away.

You do not want to accept a joke he said placing her hand on her jaw as he looked at her from head to toe.

I think you are my birthday presentsss also he had a cute smile that contrasted with the strong beer breath coming out of her mouth.

"I am just trying to get home, and I still have a long way to go...

I live there said the drunk, pointing to the blue house, "come and go in, and we relax a little, my mother can give us food and drink.

Now that he mentioned it, she remembered that he was very thirsty and that there was no lack of hunger, it would not be a bad thing to receive something, but it would be crazy to do what he was suggesting. It was not the first time that he felt that sensation; on more than one occasion he had entered the small kitchen of the apartment he shared with his mother to discover an empty refrigerator and pantry.

"Are you thinking I am a street dweller begging for food?

I do not know..., only know that you are so beautiful said the drunk, displaying a huge smile.

Look, I am going to continue on my way, and I think the best thing is that you enter your house before you collapse out here Valérie said, pointing to the door of the blue house.

"Look, know I'm drunk, but at least tell me your name, and where do you live, I would not for... forgive myself not to see you again...

Are you going to remember it? I doubt it... She did not know if he was passing innocent or risky, but despite his drunkenness, the boy seemed quite nice, and his appearance was more than attractive. He had cute black eyes that rhymed with the color of his hair, his face proportions were perfect, and he had a slim, attractive body.

"I swear I will remember...

I am Valérie, and I can't tell you where I live, but my phone number is... oh please this doesn't make sense! Tomorrow you will not even remember that you met me she said, shaking her head.

"Valérrie, nice name! She is like Valeria in Spanish, but in Spanish, she sounds ugly, but in French, she is beautiful! Just like her owner.

"Do you speak Spanish?

"When I am in my sanity ..., but give me your pho... phone number, do you have a pen?

"I do not even have shoes, much less am I going to have a pen!

Don't you have shoes? He said, looking at her feet, "no, there are no shoes, but you have beautiful foots, all Valérrie is beautiful.

It was when the lights of the house of the drunk young man came on and the door that led inside was opened, revealing a woman who was in her fifties, looking lifter and pink slippers, her short black hair somewhat messy and an unfriendly expression on her face.

It is my mother; she is as a policewoman said the drunkard after having fixed his eyes on the door of his house.

Ivan, say goodbye to your friend and come in now, it is almost three in the morning said the woman in a tone of voice that could have awakened the entire neighborhood.

Come, and let my mother lend us a pen said the drunk, taking Valérie by the hand of her and leading her to the door of the house.

Mom, I will introduce you to Va... Valérie, she's the most beautiful girl in all of Montreal said the drunken young man while her mother just gave the girl a contemptuous look.

Good night’s ma'am, I think her son is a bit drunk, it is better if she helps him to bed Valérie said, trying to provide a smile.

I do not agree with that way of celebrating, it is not very safe to be around drunk at this time of the morning said the woman, grabbing her son by her arm and leading him into the house.

Mom, I need a pen to write down the phone of the beautiful Valérie said the drunk, trying to get back outside the house.

What a ball or nothing! Tomorrow you can talk, for now you have to go to bed she said, extending her arm to block her son's path  and you little girl, go home, and I advise you to put your shoes on, you will end up nailing yourself a glass "the door closed in Valérie's face and seconds later the house lights went out.

She did not clearly know why she had wasted time with that boy. He was quite attractive, and despite his drunkenness he seemed quite likeable, the complete opposite of his mother. It would be quite interesting to meet him in another state, but she had not been able to give him the phone number and the only way to see him again would be to return to his house. It was something she would have to think about, although the next day he might not remember her.

She continued to devour blocks trying to ignore the aching feet, thirst and hunger. She regretted not wanting to have dinner before leaving for the party. She now saw it as stupid to have thought that a drop of food could have stained her dress. She had not eaten for more than twelve hours, which did not help at all to overcome the exhaustion of which she was beginning to be a victim. The cold was getting more and more intense despite the fact that she tried to walk at the maximum speed that her tired legs allowed. She concluded that the best she could do was laugh at her luck: it was ridiculous that due to a misunderstanding, added to the effects that the liquor had on some people, she had to find herself in that state. She knew people who made themselves happier with liquor, lost their shyness, or simply put their inhibitions aside. Others who, like the drunk in the blue house, became more than friendly characters and saw all the beautiful people. However, there were the dangerous ones, those who were possessed by the ghost of violence, and only wanted to look for problems and thought that the best way to solve them was by getting involved in a fight. It was the case of Pierre, and thanks to her savagery, she was being exposed to all kinds of suffering to get home. She then she tried to smile and think that it was something temporary, something that in less than forty minutes would have ended, and it would be just the memory of one more anecdote.

3

She had no more than twenty blocks to go when she again sat down to rest on a stone staircase. Her steps were full of dry leaves, the kind that rush to sprout with the first glimpses of spring, but that with the arrival of June do not resist falling with the help of heavy rains. It was not only her feet that hurt him, now her waist was added to the group of annoyances and never-ending adversities. Why did everything have to go wrong? She had never wanted to attend that dance, but Gail had convinced her by arguing that prom was only once. Brave argument for such a bad party, was what she now thought. The music had not been to her liking, she had little room to dance, and she was not even interested in any of her companions. Although there were three or four who stood out for their good looks, she thought their mentality was childish, they only talked about sex and sports, and they did not seem to have the slightest idea what they would do after graduation. Instead she, since she turned fifteen, knew that she would go to college and then to aviation school. Her dream was to fly for a large commercial airline, travel the world, leave her province for the first time, and meet different countries and people from many peoples, many races and many cultures. Although in Montreal she had become accustomed to seeing people from countries such as India and China, she had the idea that these immigrants became North Americanized as the days went by, and that if their claim were to know their true culture, they would have to move. To where they had come from. Being clear about her goals was the reason why she was not interested in anyone. She also knew that her way of thinking differed in many ways from that of her companions. Many of her filled her with compliments: they told her that she was very pretty, a very good person, very intelligent, a good student, but that had never been enough to convince her that she should go out with one of them. She had never wanted to make them seem important, much less pass for unpleasant. What drove her away from her suitors was the idea that love was something she should take seriously, and that quality was the one she least saw among her companions. Some had come to think that she was a lesbian, but her way of being, of behaving and moving, were so feminine that it was a hypothesis that she had never gained strength. However, all that was remaining in the past, now the important thing was to continue on her path and pray so that her mother did not realize how late she was going to arrive.

She stood up feeling again the tingling of her legs and the pressure of her on her waist. Although she was still cold, she felt the soles of her feet warm and she would have liked to have some water within her reach to refresh them. The residential area had been left behind, and she had been forced to return to the main avenue, where it was impossible to find the gardens with the refreshing lawns that she had despised a little earlier. She was entering an area of small buildings and commercial premises where she knew it would be impossible to avoid the harshness of the asphalt. In addition, it was her reaching a corner that she knew that this time she would not have