Life In The Palace (4 page)

“We think it’s her way of stopping us from throwing any parties. If everything is white, then it will be really obvious if it gets trashed,” Josh explained.

I sunk into the immaculate sofa. “Does it work?”

The brothers laughed conspiratorially. I looked from one to the other while waiting for someone to explain.

Seth shook his head. “This is the fourth coat of paint on the walls since we moved in. We got these heavy dust covers for the couches and we’re really good friends with the lady at the dry cleaners.”

“Yeah, Mrs. Lapoint likes us even better than Mrs. Wan downstairs.” Josh chimed in.

“What about that?” I asked pointing to a glass coffee table.

“We have coasters,” Josh showed me proudly, “and we move it out if lots of people come over.”

The couches were pushed together to form an L shape. I sank into the larger of the two, opposite the flat screen TV. Josh walked to a room in the back. Seth sat on the other couch, flicking through the messages on his phone. I waited for something to happen.

“How long were you without it?” I asked.

“Huh?”

“Your phone. How long were you locked out?”

He looked up, “A couple of hours. I sat on a bench across the street for a while, then I remembered you had class, so I walked over to campus. It was pretty cool just watching the people go by. Sometimes I do it on purpose; leave without a phone. I don’t want it to own me.”

I smiled. He went back to his messages.

Josh came back with five cans of Coke, a bowl of chips, two apples, a banana and some Oreos balanced on a tray.

I laughed, “You just watched me eat lunch.”

He nodded sheepishly, “I know, but his highness over here only drinks full fat Coke, but some people prefer diet. I wanted a snack so I’d better bring something for you, too, but I don’t know what you like so I figured I’d cover all my bases.”

I just looked at him.

“If you’d met our mother you’d understand. Things rub off on you.”

“Like over-catering?”

“Like being sensitive to the needs of a guest,” Seth called without looking up. He smiled to himself, “We’ve got caffeine-free Coke if you want.”

Josh put the tray down on and looked about to go back to the kitchen.

I said quickly, “I’m good. Diet Coke is fine. Maybe I’ll have an apple.”

Josh sat on the other end of the sofa from me. It occurred to me that with Josh on one side and Seth on the other I was now literally wedged between them. But the couch was so comfy, it was hard to care. I yawned.

“Late night?” Josh asked.

“It wasn’t meant to be. I ended up talking to my friend, Spike, until after one. You know when you’re too tired to do anything as productive as hang up and go to bed? Now I’m paying for it. I could hardly keep my eyes open this morning.”

“Don’t you get the feeling that our prof would rather be somewhere else?”

“How do they pick who teaches these summer classes? Do they get paid extra, or did ours just draw the short straw?”

“He got divorced.” Josh and I both turned to look at Seth.

“Really?” we asked in unison.

“So I heard,” Seth said with conviction. Josh raised his eyebrows.

“Ok, I totally eavesdropped on a conversation my advisor was having when I was waiting to go over my thesis. I think she was talking to Professor Donnerly from Ancient History who is, or was, married to your prof.”

Josh gave his brother a look. “Do you just spend your whole life collecting weird information?”

Seth shrugged. “I can’t help it if weird things just fall in my lap.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“He knew first when Professor Steve Jones was about to become Professor Stephanie Jones. And when there were alien sightings over the St. Laurent, he knew the guy it happened to.”

“What am I supposed to do? I’m a magnet for randomness. I have a theory, though: Jean Paul Satre said that hell is other people. It must be that it also goes the other way. Heaven is other people. All you have to do is plug yourself into the right vibes and then surf the energy all the way to paradise.”

“So you’re surfing the weird energy right now?” Josh was not impressed.

“He might have a point,” I ventured. “They do say that what you give out is what you get back.”

“Exactly, Seth gives out weirdness,” Josh smirked.

“Hey, that’s not what I meant. There are all sorts of things out there in the world that we don’t know about. Some people are just more tapped into them than others.”

It was Seth’s turn to smirk, “See, bro, I’m on a higher spiritual plain.”

Josh snorted. There was tension in the room that must have a long history. I tried to escape the quagmire.

“Jean Paul Sartre said that? It was someone real? I thought it was just one of those clichés.”

“And it was Nietzsche who said that God is dead. People throw around these sayings but there’s real philosophy behind them.”

“Like what?” I was genuinely interested.

“Sartre was an existentialist. He thought existence predisposed essence.”

I wanted to answer something cool but I had no idea what he just said.

“He said that life had no purpose other than our choices. Seeing the pointlessness of life would bring a person to despair. But reaching that place means what you are experiencing is real.” He said patiently. He waited to see if I was following.

“Sartre was a goth?”

“Better a goth than an emo,” Josh quipped.

Seth laughed and slid down the couch towards me. “It’s actually quite similar, apart from the whole black clothing and angry music stuff. Sartre just takes it further. The nothingness of human condition is not a reason for inaction or self-pity.”

“The point of life is that there is no point?” I suggested.

“Even more than that, because we have total freedom to choose our actions, we therefore have total responsibility. The place of despair comes from seeing that the true human condition is not to be glorified. But, once we accept those feelings, we can live with dignity in our freedom.” His eyes shone and for the first time I saw only the man that lived inside the body. I felt the smile on my lips, happy, fresh and filled with life. I saw it echoed on his face.

The phone rang somewhere in the house. Josh went to answer it. I realized I was still smiling at Seth. I felt silly, but he was still smiling at me. I managed to get my face under control.

He lent forward, “I’ve got a confession to make. I’ve been cyber-stalking you.”

I waited for him to explain. It felt like the whole world paused with me. This moment was crucial.

“That’s a bit of an exaggeration. I messaged this guy I worked with last summer, Ricky Ray.”

“The one with the big skeleton tattoo? What did you ask him?”

“If he knew you,” Seth looked mischievous.

I nodded impatiently. “What did he say?”

Which of my past misdeeds, or totally lack of interesting deeds had been reported?

“He said, and I quote, ‘The hot one?’ ” I nearly died.

He’s got the wrong girl. I don’t remember anyone else called Chloe around but there must have been.

Seth hadn’t finished his story, “So I wrote back ‘Spike’s friend’ and he replied ‘yeah, the hot one.’”

Ricky Ray thinks I’m hot? Does that mean Seth doesn’t? But he was asking people about me so does that mean he likes me?

“What else did he tell you?” I was curious despite my confusion.

Seth shook his head, “Not much. I just wanted to see how you reacted to the story.”

“Because you have nothing better to do on a Monday afternoon than play random mind games?” It came out a little more annoyed than I actually was.

He looked me in the eyes and again there was only him and only me. “I wanted to see if you thought you were hot. You see, I’m planning on dating you. I don’t date a lot. I only want to be with someone who’s honest. And I think you might be.”

When the coolest, most attractive guy on the planet declares his romantic interest in you, it would be wise to have a better response planned.

“Huh?”

My brain was totally frozen. We were still sitting on different sofas. He hadn’t even touched me. I looked around wildly.

“You want to date me? Is this how you usually go about arranging these things? Were you planning on consulting me?”

He looked a little sad, “I was planning on being a little more suave. I thought I’d ask you out for drinks, maybe take a walk on the mountain, then we’d get to know each other better and it would be a natural progression to actual dating.”

“That is the more traditional way of doing things. What made you pick the sledgehammer-esque approach?” My brain had still not recovered. It was stuck at “date me.” Thankfully my mouth had risen to the challenge.

“Sibling rivalry,” he said, as he leant his head towards mine, staring at my lips.

Just as I was about to drown uncaring in waves of pink yellow pleasure, Josh came back in. The kiss, still unkissed, hung in the air. Seth moved away enough that he wouldn’t fall in my lap while Josh stood there silently. Two awful seconds passed.

“The gang’s meeting up on the mountain to play Frisbee. They want to know if you, we, want to come.” His voice was remarkably calm. I didn’t turn around to look at him.

“Are you going?” Seth asked.

Josh paused. I felt the weight of his stare. “Yes,” he said emphatically.

Seth gave him a look I couldn’t read. “We’ll catch up with you.”

Josh left. The door slammed behind him. It was just the two of us.

Is it too unladylike to rip his clothes off?

A smile began to creep across his perfect face. Embarrassment quelled the fires of my passion.

It’s just me and a boy I hardly know, who I’ve been thinking about non-stop since I met him, who made a slightly bizarre declaration of intention. Do I just kiss him? Is he going to kiss me?

“Can I come and sit next to you?” he said quietly.

I was sitting on the end of a three-seater sofa, but I moved over slightly as if to make room for him. He slipped his arm around me and I slid in until I could hear his heart beating. We just sat there. It felt like home.

I started to cry.

He moved away just enough so he could take my face in his hands.

“Why?” He asked softly. Putting his lips to my cheek, he started to kiss away my tears. One dribbled to the edge of my lips and soon our lips touched. I felt him pull me closer. I willed my chest to open up so my heart could get closer to his.

I don’t know how long it was. I don’t know when I stopped crying. I could have stayed there forever. Perhaps I did. Perhaps somewhere we are forever together in that first kiss of pure intentions.

Finally I realized I was touching his face, tracing the arch of his lips. His hands were in my hair. He pulled one to my lips for me to kiss.

“I believe we were getting to know each other,” he said with a smile.

“Is that what you call it? I think by now we might be officially acquainted.” I am torn between not breaking eye contact and melting into his lips again.

There was a spark in his emerald eyes, “We’re just getting started.”

I want to die now so I can pin down this moment like an exotic butterfly. My beating heart has expanded to encompass my whole chest. If he touches me again my brain might actually detach from my cerebral cortex.

“Do you want to tell me why you were crying?” His voice was hardly more than a whisper.

“Nothing this perfect has ever happened to me, and I don’t even know you. What if I wake up tomorrow and it’s not this perfect? What if this is the best moment of my life and I’m having it when I’m eighteen? How did I become the sort of person these things happen to? What if it’s all just a horrible joke and you really owe Josh fifteen camels and you needed to settle the score?” I looked at him desperately as I could feel the tears advancing on my eyeballs.

He stroked my face, his fingers lingering on my lips.

“No joke, no camels, although I might owe him an explanation. It could be that tomorrow it won’t be this perfect. Life is made up of moments but something is always in between. I was planning on being here tomorrow; I’d like it if you were too. I don’t know what your future holds, but I hope it might be me.”

“No camels? Not even a little one?” My voice is still a little petulant.

He shook his head, “Not even a little one.”

I lay myself against his chest, and he wrapped his arms around me.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I was thinking about what you were saying the other day.”

I waited to see what he’d say. He took my silence as acquiescence.

“There’s more to this story. She rode off with Rob, she gave up being the fantasy princess to live a different dream, now she’s somewhere in Florida, your parents are devastated, you had to escape, but what else?” His brow wrinkled with concentration.

I stayed snuggled in his chest and avoided his gaze.

“What about Spike?” he asked suddenly. “You told me that you went along with the whole goth thing for her. Is it the same issue? Is Spike, Stacy?”

I pulled away. “Is Spike, Stacy? They’re nothing alike. Are you crazy?”

“No, but maybe we shouldn’t go there right now. You could think about it, though.” He spoke carefully.

I snuggled back in. “What are your secrets? Tell me about Emily.”

Seth chuckled, “Who told you about Emily? Don’t bother telling me, I know people talk. Emily was a beautiful girl, we made a lovely couple.” His voice was cold.

“But you broke up?”

“Emily was living in her own fantasy of her wonderful life with her gorgeous boyfriend, and after a while I just couldn’t do it anymore. That’s why I had to know if you knew how attractive you are. I can’t do any more girls who think it’s their destiny to be prom queen.”

“Did you really think I did?”

“I had to make sure. It was pretty bad when we broke up. If you date someone for long enough then they become woven into your life. There is no such thing as a clean break; pieces of you always get left behind. I was suffocating to death being with her but it hurt to leave. I don’t want to go through that again.” His eyes focused on memories still fresh.