Life In The Palace (2 page)

“Spike?” he raised his eyebrows.

“Her real name is Lauralee Crystabell. If she ever finds out I told you, we will both have to die.”

“I’ll take the secret to the grave. So you went all gothed up? Is that your usual mode of dress?” He looked me up and down.

“No… yes… sometimes.” I opened my mouth and said something I’d never admitted to myself before. “I pretty much just do it to fit in with her. Our other best friend, Jared, does too. Although in his case I think it’s just an excuse to wear makeup. It’s not that I’m not into it at all. I’m not a total wannabe. It’s just not really my identity. Although it can be pretty cool sometimes.”

I knew it couldn’t last more than about thirty seconds. I waited for him to turn away, now that I just admitted I’m a total loser.

He’s still staring at me.

I wriggled in my seat and shut my eyes.

When I opened them he was still staring at me.

I could feel my heart beating through my chest and there was too much saliva in my mouth.
This has to be a dream. Any minute now I’m going to find myself naked in a room full of people.

But he’s still staring at me.

With any luck it could be one of
those
dreams.

A smile started to spread slowly across his face.

Crap. This is real.

Is he about to kiss me?

Suddenly Bernie called over, “Are you coming for burgers, Seth?”

The moment was broken. He looked at her, smiled a different smile, and raised an eyebrow.

He has perfect eyebrows, does he pluck them?

“Sorry, some of us have to work. You young things will have to go without me.” Then he laughed, not even bothering to fake indignation for long. Everyone started to gather their stuff. The party was obviously breaking up.

“He’s a bartender in a place a few blocks down,” Josh explained. “You want to get something to eat?”

I wasn’t hungry but I went anyway.

I gave a full report the next day when Spike was on her cigarette and cell phone break. I couldn’t actually see her, but experience told me she was sitting in the driving seat of her silver SUV rather than smoking on the street. I could picture her perched with the door open, looking more like someone’s kid than the car’s owner. At five foot two, the SUV’s wheels were nearly taller than her. She’d only taken the burger flipping job to keep Jared company for the summer before she went to Harvard. Having managed to get him into community college, now she was working on getting him out of the closet.

“At least you found some friends. Would I approve?”

“Probably, it turns out there are more types than just jock or nerd,” I said with a smile.

“Do you mean that there’s life outside of high school?” She asked with mock terror.

“There might be. I’m at least leaving myself open to the possibility. It’s a hypothesis worthy of more detailed research.”

I heard the deep intake of breath that signaled the start of her second cigarette. Her break wasn’t over yet, so she must be trying to buy some time.

When she was ready, she spoke, “Let me recap. We’ve got Josh the cute blond guy in your class that might be interested in you, time will tell, but he hasn’t yet done anything to capture your attention; Bernie, cool kid from New Zealand, and her Asian-Canadian boyfriend Charlie; Maxine is from France with cool spiky hair; Dwayne from Nigeria’s a bit of a know-it–all, but fun to have around because he’s always got an opinion. He sounds like our own Martin, aka Slasher.”

“Exactly,” I interjected. “Wait, Martin’s going by Slasher?”

“He’s trying. I don’t think it’s going to stick. Even with sixteen piercings you know that in his soul he wears a pocket protector.”

I giggled. I was sitting on my bed leaning against a mound of pillows. My room was big enough to have my bed smack bang in the middle and still have space for a desk behind the door. I liked the bed open from all sides, it felt untethered. I pulled my knees up to my chest as I listened to her recap.

“Then you have an assorted bunch of other international student randoms and Mr. Too-Cool-To-Be-True.”

“That’s about right.” Pleasant images of the gorgeous Seth floated through my mind.

“Are you going to make a play for him?” Spike asked calmly.

I snorted, “Not freaking likely. Why would I do a stupid thing like that? Did you miss the part where he’s a pre-med philosophy major, who plays in a band, works in a bar, as well as being the hottest guy in the city?”

“No, I got that the first five times you mentioned it. But he’s cool and hot, does there need to be another reason?”

“Aren’t you the one who refused to read
Twilight
because there was no basis for their relationship?”

Spike chuckled. “Please, if you’re going to die you should have a better reason for doing it than because the guy is hot.”

“Edward and Bella have a love that is true, so don’t even go there. But even if his being hot was the only basis for their relationship, you’re saying it’s a good reason for me to date someone?” I sat up on the bed.

“I’m saying that it’s a bad reason to die. It is, however, a very good reason to express an interest in getting to know someone better.”

“There are more than enough girls expressing an interest. I don’t need to go jumping on that particular bandwagon, thank you.” I walked over to my desk and flicked open my laptop. Sitting in front of the computer had a comforting feeling of being productive without actually having to do anything.

“Don’t give me that, ‘if all of your friends jumped off the Brooklyn bridge, would you, too?’ crap. Sometimes all of your friends are going bungee jumping.”

We laughed in unison.

“Someone has to date him, why not you?”

“There is a serious flaw in your hypothesis? Word is he’s stayed single quite happily for the last year.” I flicked through PowerPoint slides for my class.

“It’s the summer; everyone wants to date in the summer. It’s seasonal.”

I stopped what I was doing. There was a funny note in her voice.
Everyone wants to date in the summer?

“Spike, who are you dating?”

“Why do you think I’m dating anyone?” Spike could be a big baby when she wanted.

“No, don’t bother giving me the runaround. It’s seasonal, who are you dating?”

She paused, probably working out if she could get out of it.

“Some kid from Phoenix,” she said casually.

“Phoenix? What kid from Phoenix? Who do you know in Arizona?” I groaned inwardly.

There was silence. I wasn’t talking until she did. I wondered how much longer her break from work would last.

Reluctantly she spoke, “His name’s Fred. He came down to El Paso to work at Doug’s. You should see his artwork. It’s hella cool. Most people can’t get that much texture on body art.”

“So it was love at first sight when you got a new tattoo?” I wasn’t going to let her try the old “blind them with details” trick on me.

“No,” she said quickly, “I’d have told you if I got a new tat.”

“But not a new boyfriend.” I shot back jumping up from my seat.

“It’s not like it’s official; we just hung out a few times. You haven’t exactly been available recently. I’ve been pretty hard pressed to get through the walls of misery without so much as a smoke signal.”

“Aren’t goths supposed to wallow in self-pity?” I countered.

“Come on, Chlo, you’re not a goth,” she spat back.

I’d just admitted as much to a total stranger, but it stung when she said it. Especially when she said it.

There was a heavy pause. Spike sighed, “Hang on a sec, can we both breathe? Are we really squaring off to fight?”

It was my turn to sigh. “No. I wish you’d have told me there was someone new in the picture. It feels weird not to know what’s going on in your life.”

“Yeah, well, ditto.” The hurt filled her voice.

“Fair enough. I got it, more detail, more disclosure.” I sank onto my bed.

“Okay, me too. Now I see why people are always so against long distance relationships.” Spike sounded more like her old self.

“Want to tell me more about him?” I asked tentatively.

Her tone softened. I could bet she was smiling. “He grew up in Philly, but his Mom got remarried last year, so he went to live with his Dad in Arizona. He was in college and dropped out. Got a job in Phoenix and started making beautiful pictures.”

“How did you meet?”

The smile was still in her voice, “Remember when Ricky Ray and JC had that ‘tea’ party? Ricky Ray invited Fred as thanks for doing such dope work on his shoulder. Fred and I ended up wasted on the sofa, having one of those late night conversations that seem really deep, but with 20/20 hindsight are just stupid.”

“About what?”

“Pottery and its meaning as an art form. Whether Styrofoam deserves more recognition as a medium.”

I chuckled. He did sound cool. “One conversation does not a dreamy Spike make.”

I almost heard her lick her lips with pleasure. “Yesterday we hung out in the mall just the two of us. They were showing
Friday the Thirteenth
as a matinee and he asked if I wanted to go. When the movie started, he held my hand. It was really old school.”

“Did he kiss you?” I asked, fascinated by the guy who made Spike sound all young-love.

“Yeah, we hooked up last week. But you know it was at the end of the night when most people had already left or passed out, so I wasn’t sure that it counted. Now it looks like we’re on the way to being official.”

“So soon?”

“What’s soon? We’ve hung out every night.”

“You didn’t say that.” I said accusingly.

“What’s there to tell? I was just passing on the good bits. He kept finding some lame-assed reason to hang around with me until he asked me out. Obviously, I would normally be forced to break him into small pieces but it happens that I like him so I let him live. If I’ve decided he’s worth the effort, why not make it official? It saves me the trouble of dealing with anyone else who might try to muscle in. But
chica,
I gotta go flip some burgers.” She hung up.

Spike’s in love, or at least ‘luuurve?’ She doesn’t usually date. She hooks up with guys when the mood takes her and she had that whole polyamorous thing going with JC last year, which was really just an excuse to hedge their bets at the end of the night.
How did anyone get Spike to giggle and consider “going steady?” Should I go home and check it out? What am I thinking? Going home would mean being at home. I’m not ready to face Mom and Dad yet. Mom might bake cookies.

Chapter 2

F
or a school
I’d picked almost at random, in a city I didn’t research, I’d really lucked out. Montreal was a beautiful city in the summer, full of tree-lined streets and outdoor cafés. We were meeting a few blocks away from campus in the heart of the area known as the Student Ghetto, because only students would pay the exorbitant rent to live that close to the campus in the middle of downtown Montreal. Bernie waved as I walked over. She was sitting with Dwayne at a small table in the courtyard outside the café.

“Hey, inside with air conditioning, or outside with more atmosphere?” Dwayne asked. “We need a casting vote.”

I thought about it. “It’s a lot of pressure.” Montreal might be a fun place to hang but at times the humidity was stifling.

Dwayne nodded, “The weight of the world rests on your shoulders.”

With great seriousness, I declared, “Outside. The way you were talking the other day, it sounds like the snow will force us to spend the whole school year inside, so we’d better get as much oxygen now as possible.”

Dwayne shrugged and Bernie smiled.

“Who just won?” I asked.

“She did,” Dwayne conceded, “But I can take it. Now I’ll guard the table and you go get coffee.”

By the time Bernie and I got back to the table, the rest of the gang had arrived. Someone was sitting in what had been my seat. I didn’t need to see his face to know it was Seth.

I didn’t know he was coming.

My heart skipped a beat.

Oh great. Stupid Spike, why does she have to put ideas into my head? His neck is beautiful though. It’s a little bit muscular without being beefy. I bet his hair is soft where it’s cropped short at the back. Ahh, shut up, mind.

As a good boyfriend, Charlie had saved Bernie a seat next to him, so I sat next to Maxine. Thankfully, I was not directly opposite from Seth, so I couldn’t fall into the trap of unintentional staring.

“The waves were out of this world. I should’ve gone with him.” Seth was saying.

Bernie swallowed quickly, “You saw Bret’s pics from Maui? I’m beyond jealous.”

“You wouldn’t have really left the band?” the guy sitting next to him asked.
What’s that guy’s name? I think he’s Josh’s cousin or something.
He’d been there in the bar before but hadn’t said much. He was wearing jeans and what I presumed was a band T-shirt, since it said “The Midway State.”

Seth put both hands up. “People, Maui might have been worth it.” He paused then shook his head, “No, last night we rocked. It’s a good thing that I stayed here this summer. The surf will be there another time.”

“The surf will be there, but it won’t be riding on the same waves,” Charlie nodded with exaggerated wisdom.

Seth smirked, “When you’re surfing the riff of a sweet guitar, no waves can compare.”

“When’s your next gig?” Bernie asked obviously trying to break up their little comedy routine.

This was clearly the right question to ask. Seth bounced in his seat like a little puppy. “Actually we just got booked to do a gig in a couple of weeks in Magog.”

Charlie whistled, “Deepest, darkest Quebec. You’d better brush up on your French.”

“Why? I’m going to take Maxine with me.” Not a bad choice since she was from France, so she was legitimately French.

Maxine arched one perfectly crafted eyebrow, “Nice of you to ask me.”

His face a picture of seriousness, Seth turned to Maxine and said, “Hey, Maxine, the band just got booked for a gig in Magog. You want to come and be our translator?”

“I’m planning a headache,” she replied haughtily, but struggled to suppress a smile.

“I’ll let you ride shotgun.”

“I’ll pencil you in.”

“I just hope it goes better than that gig we played in Ottawa on Canada Day. Is there a rule you can only live in Ottawa if you’ve had your sense of humor surgically removed?”

Dwayne looked up. “It’s the proximity to the Canadian parliament. It causes people to undergo a molecular shift.”

“I always thought they put something in the drinking water,” Bernie suggested.

Charlie playfully hit her on the arm. “Could you people find another topic besides bashing Canadians?”

“Why, when there are such plentiful resources?” Dwayne shot back.

“You do seem to talk about it an awful lot,” I dared to say. I cringed in mock fear of the response.

“We talk about the French too, but Maxine gets really ticked off, so we have to wait for when she’s not around.” Seth smiled at me.

He smiled at me.
I hardly dared to breathe. My heart raced.
Should I smile back?

“Have you seen Bret’s profile picture today?” Josh asked, I presumed to Seth.

Seth smiled smugly.

“What is it, Ethan?” Charlie asked.

“It’s an old man in a suit, at least it must be an old man because he’s got a cane but the head is Rob Patterson. The elderly Rob Pat is standing on a surf board surrounded by amazing waves.” The band shirt-wearing cousin, whose name seemed to be Ethan, explained for the rest of us as Josh passed over his phone to show Charlie.

“Bawh!” Charlie erupted into laughter. “Nice one.”

Bernie snickered, “See, he misses you, Seth. Bret wants you in Maui too.”

I looked around at the group, “Did that make sense to anybody else?”

“Bret Lowe is Seth’s best friend …. ” Maxine began.

“Aww-,” interjected Josh and Ethan making puppy eyes at each other.

“Bret’s a big time surfer. He came to school here so he could snowboard when he wasn’t surfing.”

“Why didn’t he just go to school in Australia so he could surf all year long?” I couldn’t help asking.

Josh grinned, “His parents wanted to keep him close enough to check up on him and make sure he was remembering to go to school.”

“Bret likes to post riddles as his Facebook profile picture. It’s like a test of coolness for his friends to see if they can get the joke.” Bernie explained

“And this one is a message for Seth?” I asked tentatively.

“This is an easy one,” Josh explained.

I thought for a minute to see if I could work it out. “Rob Patterson because he looks a bit like Seth, surfing is obviously to say Seth should be in Maui with him, but why the old man?”

Seth was clearly amused. His expression stayed impassive, but his eyes twinkled. He looked meaningfully over at Bernie and Charlie.

Bernie sighed, “Because Seth is the originator of the Old-Men-Are-Cooler theory.”

I raised my eyebrows.

Charlie joined in, “Old men are cooler because they get to wear a suit and tie and look sharp.”

“While old ladies just wear baggy stockings and smell like pee,” Bernie finished off.

“Which is so true.” Seth held one hand in the air for emphasis. “Old ladies get faded clothes and those knitted cardigans, but old men get handkerchiefs in their pockets and canes with the metal tops. Old men are just cooler.”

Bernie looked directly at me. “Just nod and smile and go along with it. That’s what the rest of us do.”

“You don’t actually look that much like Rob Pat,” Ethan said.

I agreed silently.
Seth is better looking.

Before she could say anything, Josh asked, “What’s with his hair? He always has a lot of hair.”

“I thought that was just to be the vampire.” Charlie did not sound very certain.

“Doesn’t he have less hair now?” Josh wondered.

“He’s growing his own toupee,” I said half under my breath.

Seth turned and looked over. He smirked and gave me a nod of appreciation.

I saw him say to himself, “Growing his own toupee.” He looked at me again and the smirk became a smile.

He’d better look away soon because I think I might drown in his eyes. Why is he still looking at me? It must be because I’m new. He just doesn’t know what to make of me yet. The others seem to have known each other for years. They’ve all got their well-worn part in the conversation. New is always interesting.

I gave up following the conversation and concentrated on trying not to drool.

On Sunday, we met outside the wrought iron gates that marked the entrance to campus on Sherbrooke. I don’t know how Josh kept track of who was expected to arrive, because there seemed to be an endless parade of new faces. I stuck, I hope not too obviously, to the core group of people whose names I remembered. When Josh decided that “everyone” was there, we started walking.

“Maxine,” I whispered as I fell into step alongside her. “Where are we going?”

“The
Tam
Tams
.”

“What are the tam Tams? I don’t mean what’s a tam tam. It’s a drum but where are we going?”

“You are about to be initiated into a Montreal rite of passage. The
Tam
Tams
is the only proper activity for a Sunday afternoon,” she stage-whispered back.

My heart leaped as Seth turned around and waited for us to fall into step. He’d obviously overheard our conversation. When I was level with him, he explained, “Legend has it that one summer afternoon a few guys went up by the mountain with a drum. They were just hanging out, jamming a little. The next Sunday another couple of guys showed up with their drums and they all jammed together. By the end of the summer, it was that.” Seth waved his hand up ahead.

We’d reached the edge of the park that surrounds the mountain. In the distance I could see some sort of concrete monument surrounded by a sea of people. Even at that distance and with the roar of traffic on the overpass next to us, I could hear the rumble of drums.

“Now they come every year. The original drummers are long forgotten, but their memory lives on. When the stars align and the weather is warm, the drummers return without any official signal,” Seth was clearly enjoying his role as the Oracle of Truth.

“So people just play drums?”

“And dance, hang out, smoke a little.” Maxine smirked. “Just about anything goes.”

People sat sprawled over the rich grass. The paved area around the monument heaved with bodies: dancers, drummers, shoppers, voyeurs and the occasional bemused passerby. A circle of colored blankets turned out to be a series of small stalls selling everything from ethnic carvings to homemade bread.

It seemed that half the population of Montreal had come to enjoy the sunshine. The whole place sizzled. At first I wondered how hundreds of drummers managed to beat together in such perfect rhythm. Then I noticed that my heart had started to pick up the beat. It was a pulsating sea of humanity and nearly all of them seemed to know Seth. Quickly he was separated from the rest of us.

We picked a spot on the grass across from the monument. There was much less conversation. Even Dwayne seemed content to just sit back and experience the scene. I sat next to Bernie on my right and there was a bit of a gap between me and Ethan on my left. That’s the only way I could explain it. Out of nowhere, he was suddenly sitting next to me.

“How did you come to be in Montreal?” Seth asked in my left ear and his breath tickled down my neck. I tried to neither faint with delight nor jump with surprise.

I turned my head just enough to make eye contact. “I ran away from home,” I said with a slight smile.

He met my smile and raised me a broad grin. “Are the cops after you?”

“I did tell my parents I was coming.”

His eyes held mine as he asked, “What were you running away from?”

Before I could answer, an earnest Indian girl wearing brown slacks that skimmed the edge of her ankle and an creased checked shirt, glanced nervously at the rest of us but stopped to talk to Seth. He smiled warmly and said something I couldn’t hear. She nodded and blushed with obvious pleasure. I couldn’t hear what Bernie was saying to Maxine so instead I concentrated on controlling my breathing.

Seth turned back to me, “You were about to tell me why you ran away.”

I turned to look at him sharply, “Are you really interested?” I instantly regretted my anger.

His face stayed calm, “Only if you want me to be.”

I looked at him, searching for some insincerity. His face was open and friendly.

I sighed, “It’s a slightly long story.”

“I can handle it.”

“My sister Stacy ran away from home, except for real. No one knows where she is.”

He looked concerned, “Is she in trouble?”

“It depends on how you define trouble. My parents banned her from seeing her boyfriend. She played along, but when she went away to college, he went, too. When Dad found out he went mental, then she dropped out of college and that was the last we heard of her.”

“So could be she’s dead in a ditch somewhere but more likely she’s just shacked up with lover boy?”

I nodded. I opened my mouth to add more, but paused when I saw a tall Rastafarian with grey tinged beard wave at Seth. Seth waved back, but pointedly stayed looking at me.

“What was so wrong with the guy?”

“Rob’s from the wrong side of town. He didn’t finish high school, and he has numerous tattoos. Although he did hold down a steady job, it was as a mechanic in a bike shop. He rides a large motorcycle that probably cost more than my Dad’s car.”

Seth smirked, “I presume your sister’s not the biker type.”

“Hell, no. Stacy’s the head cheerleader, valedictorian, straight A’s, early-acceptance-to-Dartmouth type.”

“How did they meet?” Seth asked.

“My mom has a florist shop in a neighborhood strip mall that’s becoming more upmarket. The bike shop on the end had a ten year lease that they refused to break. So while the rest of the strip mall got yuppyfied, Ted’s Hogs stayed on.”

Seth nodded to show he was following.

“Mom needed extra help on the weekend, and Stacy wanted to earn some extra money for college. Although, I bet now they wish they’d hired some illegal immigrant like everyone else, and just given Stacy the cash.

“Still, it would have been fine if it hadn’t been for Grandma Mary’s broken hip. Mom was so busy with doctors, nursing homes, homecare assistants and rehab, that it really helped to have someone else take over in the afternoons. Stacy was accomplished enough to watch the shop, study and have time to manicure her nails. It seems she had a little too much time on her hands, even with a French manicure.”