Scetch of Veska (love interst)

Character profile: supporting or minor character #1.


She had dark hair and long legs and big brown eyes and a scar across her forehead that angled down over her left eye ending near her left ear. It was hard to ignore the scar and it made Martin hesitant to look her in the eyes, but he forced himself to do so anyway.

“My name is Martin,” he said holding out his hand to be taken and shaken.

The woman smiled and shook his hand. Her hand was small and cool to the touch and her fingernails were brick red and cut short. Her little finger was missing mid knuckle which he realized the moment they gripped hands.

“I am Veska,” she said and smiled with straight white teeth. She had an accent that may have been Hungarian.

“Is this your school?” he asked.

“I run this school. It is for children, I like to think it is their school.”

“So, you are in charge, it is what I meant to ask,” he asked, smiling but showing a little edgeyness.

“I like to think so,” Veska smiled back. Her smile stretched across her face in a way that was difficult not to notice. She laughed then, a pretty woman’s laugh; meaning a laugh that pretty women use. “What can I do for you, Mr. Martin?” she added, down to business now, the smile no longer anywhere in sight.

Martin felt his face redden. Her scar was not a scary scar, as scars go, though it probably went a ways to get the children’s attention should she need a little help in that regard. Looking at her now, her direct look, her clear eyes searching his, he didn’t think she needed the fear factor it could have supplied. He had the sudden feeling her students were well behaved for many reasons other than fear.

“I have some school supplies donated from friends of mine. I was going to ask where I should deliver them?”

“School supplies?”

“Yes, pencils and paper and I can let you have a six or seven computers, and I also have—“

“Why are you blushing, Mr. Martin?”

“Actually, you can call me ‘Martin’, Miss Veska.”

“Mr. Martin, or Mr. Ladd, your offer is welcome. I will put you in touch with a man named Titio. You must excuse me now. Will you wait here? I will send him to discuss details.”

“Details…” there was a question in his voice, but he smiled through it.

“He will most happy to discuss them with you.

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Miz Veska,” Martin said.

“Mrs. Veska,” she said, her face and voice showing intent.

“Mrs. Veska!” Martin said, trying to keep disappointment out of his voice. He looked at her directly, perhaps his eyebrows narrowed.

The woman backed up facing him and shaking her head, her face now blushing also. She started to say something, and stopped, and her good laugh came again. “I will send Titio,” she said and put her hand out for him to wait where he was here in the front of the school with the ocean’s waves within hearing distance and the basketball court to his right.

The woman turned and walked like women walk that know you are looking at their ass, and she went in through the open double wooden door, turning at the last moment to look back at Martin. She held up her long thin index finger and smiled a final time before disappearing into the darkness inside.

Martin was going to smile at her when she turned to look back, but she was gone too soon.

There was a basketball on the side of the basketball court which drew him in that direction. He picked the ball up and dribbled it toward to center of the court. It had been a long time since he dribbled a basketball, and when he got close to the left hoop, he looked around quickly and spotted no one. He did a little move on a make believe opponent and shot for the basket.

Air-Ball.

He watched the ball bounce off to the side of the court where the green high grass stopped it dead. He looked at the orange basketball in the grass and thought it all might make a good picture, but he had no urge to retrieve it, bounce it, hold it, or to ever see it again much less take another shot at the basket.

Martin turned back to the doors Wesca had walked through and saw a short black man with a shiny bald head coming out. The man waved and broke into an agile trot toward Martin.

Titio, Martin thought waiting as the man came up.