The Matchmaker

by Kitty Parker

  "Why did you sleep so late?"

  "I was at a party," I informed her. I make it a point not to lie to my parents. They don't deserve it.

  "If people saw you associating with those sorts of people…"

  "It was at the Maloney's. I wasn't corrupted."

  "But if people had seen you drinking so heavily…" she trailed off warningly.

  "Mother, I won't ruin your perfect image. Everyone there already knew my habits." I got out a bowl of cereal.

  "Good. Be sure to keep it that way. Your father and I will be working until late."

  She left without another word. No parting pleasantries, no bones of affection to throw to her starving dogs of sons.

  I threw myself down on a stool and began to slurp my cereal, the slurping a petty revenge against my snobs of parents who formed me in their image against my will. Troy sat next to me, watching me eat.

  "Why'd you do that?" he asked, grabbing a candy bar to munch on.

  "What?"

  "Talk to mom like that."

  "Like what?" I grabbed another bowl.

  "You were so mean to her!"

  "She was mean to me too."

  "No, she wanted to make sure you were alright," he contradicted, face screwed up in an effort to believe himself.

  "You're right, kid. I'll try more next time." Neither of us really believed me, but we didn't call it. Troy still liked to pretend our parents cared about us, and I didn't want to completely crush his illusions.

  I ate the rest of my cereal in silence until the deep chimes of the doorbell reverberated throughout the house.

  "You expecting anyone?" I asked Troy. He shook his head, just as bemused as me. No one ever came here during working hours, except occasionally Brock, but he didn't ring the bell anymore.

  "Alfred will get it," Troy observed.

  "Yeah," I replied distractedly. Was I forgetting something? If only I could remember… I need a remember all right now.

  The intercom came on.

  "Master Darien, someone for you," Alfred announced.

  "What the-" I cut off the expletive just in time, so as not to expose Troy to too much swearing. He shrugged, catching my meaning anyway.

  I jogged to the entrance hall, still too much exercise for my alcohol soaked brain. I skidded to a halt just before the door and strolled in, face set into a nonchalant smirk.

  Emma Laycha was being shown across the hall by Alfred, making surprisingly little noise on the tiles made specifically to amplify motion from those who were clumsy or low class. The hall was meant as a test, and walking quietly on it was a skill.

  Emma came to a stop in front of me, eyes barely stopping at my shirtless chest. I took immediate offense at that. Was my chest-well muscled and hard, I might add- not worth drooling over? And what kind of teenage girl doesn't ogle any shirtless guy?

  I glared down at her.

  "What the hell are you doing here?"

  Chapter 9

  * * *

  Emma

  * * *

  This was the outside of enough. He invites me over- okay, I manipulated him into inviting me over- to his house, and then he acts all surprised when I actually show up! I even left later then I had planned to give him time to sleep off his hangover. True, Allan wasn't up yet, but I figured Darien was lighter then Allan. Besides, Allan out drinks everyone.

  'What am I doing here?" I spat, meeting his eyes squarely, refusing to look down at his shirtless chest (I was right, though, he does have muscles). He leaned against the wall, and I could see his eyes were just the least bit unfocused. He wasn't in any condition for an argument. Good, that meant I was going to win.

  "Yeah," he repeated, "Why are you here?"

  "You invited me," I informed him coolly.

  "I did not!"

  "Yes you did."

  "No."

  "Yes."

  "No"

  So we sounded like a pair of kindergarteners, what are you going to do? I wished I had a tape recorder. This would be good blackmail.

  "Dar?" We both spun to face the hall and the interruption of our argument. A kid, maybe about 10 by his looks, was peering out of a doorway, "You did tell her to come. You were complaining about it to Brock yesterday."

  Darien opened his mouth as if to yell, than shut it. He repeated the process several times, during which I had to fight the temptation to observe that he looked rather like a fish as the moment. The kid grinned up at me through sunlight blonde hair.

  "He has problems remembering stuff like that, sometimes," he informed me, ignoring Darien's fish-like antics.

  "You don't say?" I drawled. Darien glared daggers at me, but he ruffled the kid's hair. I had been expecting him to go cold and haughty like he usually did, but he didn't.

  "Well, thanks for losing me the argument," he teased, and I could swear I detected a trace of an actual, heartfelt smile on his face. Stop the clock; is Darien McGavern actually fond of someone? The boy's laughing cerulean eyes met mine, and I knew who the kid must be. His eyes matched Darien's, when Darien was in one of his rare good moods.

  "Your brother?" I asked Darien over the kid's head (just barely, he was only about 10 inches shorter then me). Darien nodded curtly. "Why have I never heard you had a brother?"

  He didn't know why that was so weird. Most people wouldn't know things like that. But I thought I knew the basics, things like siblings, on everyone in the school.

  "No one comes over here," he enlightened me.

  'What about your parties? You host half the football after parties." Let him wonder where I got that bit of information.

  "They stay out of the family wing. I isolate them," he answered, "Now, Troy, me and Emma-"

  "Emma and I," I corrected under my breath. Grammar mistakes annoy me. He sneered at me.

  "Emma and I have to work. Go amuse yourself." Well, at least he took my correction.

  "But Dar…" the kid, Troy, whined. Darien rolled his eyes affectionately.

  "Go do your own homework," he ordered, "You told me you had a lot of social studies. Emma's even better then me at that, so if you finish it while she's here, you can ask her for help."

  His brother made a face, but ran off.

  "Thanks for volunteering me," I told Darien.

  "You're welcome."

  "So," I taunted, "I'm better then you at social studies?"

  He groaned.

  "I can't argue with facts, Laycha. You get the highest history grades in the school."

  Actually, I don't. There's a senior who all he does I work, but he does get better grades then I do. Not that I have to inform Darien of that.

  "Come on!" he commanded, stalking down the hall. I jogged to keep up, only glancing back once. The butler had disappeared. Do all servants know how to do that? If they do, I'm going to servant school to learn.

  Darien had gotten far ahead of me. He glanced back, irritated.

  "Are you coming?" he demanded. I hurried up to him, and he walked on without another word. This house was even bigger then Jack's, and I didn't used to think that was possible. I put all my energy into memorizing the way we went. Hell if I was going to get lost in the McGavern Mansion, or need Darien to show me to the door.

  We finally stopped in a small (comparatively, of course) den, complete with laptop and desk. State of the art laptop, of course.

  "You can work in here."

  I raised my eyebrows in my best skeptical look. It was nearly as patented as Darien's smirk.

  "Where are you going to work then?" I asked ingenuously.

  "I'm not."

  I let out an exasperated breath.

  "Do we have to go through this again, McGavern? You are doing half the work. No more, no less."

  "Why?" for a second, he sounded (and looked) exactly like his brother when he was told to do his homework. "You know I'll just bring your grade down."

  I chuckled. At the incredulous look on his face after that chuckle, I broke into a hysterical fit of laughter. He watched me
, completely bemused.

  "What?" he demanded as I sobered.

  "McGavern," I stated, keeping a straight face this time, "I could fail this project and still have a B in that class. Do you think the grade actually matters to me?"

  "Obviously not, despite what you asserted on Thursday," he responded coldly, trying to sound horribly dignified, It's hard to sound dignified when you've just been the butt of fits of laughter.

  "I stated that I needed to learn how to work with bastards, not that I needed the grade," I corrected just as icily, "Now sit down. Who do you think we should do?"

  He sat, more out of surprise then any desire to obey me. Still, point for me.

  * * *

  Darien

  * * *

  "Who do you want?" I replied in tones that I hoped conveyed the honour I was bestowing on her by letting her choose.

  "Well," either I wasn't as good at manipulating voices as I thought, or she completely ignored the inflection, "I was thinking either Tolkien or Louisa May Alcott, but I can do basically anyone."

  "Alcott," I considered a moment, "Didn't she write Little Women?"

  She raised her eyebrows, and I could tell she was impressed despite herself.

  "Among other things, yes." She agreed, "But if that's too feminine for you, I can respect that. Do you have any suggestions?"

  "I would emasculate me too much. How about Joseph Heller?"

  "You like Catch 22? Interesting."

  "Why?" Did she not think me intelligent enough to like an actual book? Well, maybe that would be justified, but she was supposed to be observant.

  "Wouldn't have taken you for a rebel," she replied, still studying me with her head cocked at a slight angle, as if trying to see through me.

  "I'm flattered," I drawled. She rolled her eyes.

  "So, Heller sounds good. Do you know anything about his life?"

  "Not much." I flipped open the laptop and began to search, "But my father has some stuff we could use, if we can get it."

  She bent over the computer as I skillfully navigated the search. Before I knew it, we were hard at work. She didn't even crow her victory over me. Much.

  o0O0o0O0o

  "Are you guys done yet?" a small head peeked into the room. I put a final note down on our paper (Emma disclaimer her handwriting as too messy to be read, so I did all the writing while she worked the computer) and Emma glanced at her watch.

  "We better be, I have to get home. We can finish it in class."

  "Or BS it," I suggested. She swatted me with her ever present book. "Fine, we can do it in class. I'll walk you to the door."

  'You don't-" she began, but Troy cut her off.

  "But I didn't get to ask my questions!" he complained, letting his lower lip quiver in the ultimate puppy dog pout that can get him anything from anyone. Emma was no exception. She chuckled and sat back down.

  "What's the question?"

  "Um…" he looked sheepishly at the ground, and I could tell he was making it up on the spot, "Do you like my brother?"

  Me and Emma-Emma and I- exchanged horrified looks.

  "You said a question about homework," she disclaimed quickly.

  "I said a question. Do you like him?"

  I could almost hear the thoughts running through her head. While the last few hours, despite actually working, hadn't been torture, and bantering with Emma had become almost enjoyable, the best I could hope for was the she would temper her statement enough to not give Troy too horrible an idea of me. He didn't know how I acted at school, and if I had my way, he never would. If Emma was uncensored, I had the feeling bastard would come up quite a bit, along with many other adjectives I wouldn't understand. Although if I didn't, that meant Troy wouldn't either…

  "Not at all in the way you are implying," she stated, and I let out the breath I had been holding. At least she hadn't been too verbose.

  "Now," she continued, "I really do need to get home. Big family dinner tonight."

  I rose as well.

  "I'll show you out," I offered. It's easy to get lost in this labyrinthine house, and there's no way she could find her way back to the door by herself. Brock still had issues, and we'd been friends for years.

  "I'm fine." I raised an eyebrow. "No, really, I can get out."

  "If you get stuck," I informed her only slightly patronizingly, "just hit an intercom button."

  "Thanks, but I'm good." She shrugged on her bag, "Nice meeting you, Troy. Darien, don't do anything stupid until after the project is due."

  "Same to you," I retorted. She sneered and jogged out the door. She always jogs. Maybe it's because her legs are so much shorter then everyone else's, she has to jog to keep up.

  Troy also watched her leave, as I was wondering if she had a car to get home, and whether I should have offered to drive her. Maybe someone was picking her up.

  "I like her," Troy announced.

  "Congratulations."

  "You should invite her over more," he suggested, "she's better then those other girls who come to your parties."

  "Perhaps."

  The buzzer on the intercom rang. Grinning arrogantly, I answered it.

  "Just wanted to tell you," Emma informed me with a suppressed triumph I could even hear over the intercom, "I'm out. So you don't have to worry about me."

  Well, better is definitely a matter of opinion.

  Chapter 10

  * * *

  Emma

  * * *

  The project had gone off well, loathe as I was to admit it. Not only had Darien done his share of the work with minimal complaints (after we had gotten over the initial hurdles), but he had also presented with an ease and char, I could never emulate. Not in front of all those people, at least. It's not so much that I care what they think about me, but if I humiliated myself, I would never forgive myself. But with him as my partner, I may- just may, there's no way of ever proving it- have gotten a higher grade then I could have without him. OF course, with me, he got a much better grade then he's probably ever gotten in his life. So he still got the better deal, but it would be difficult for me to get the better deal in this situation.

  I leaned back in my chair and watched the last pair for today (Robertson, Smith) finish up. They had stumbled and stuttered through the entire presentation and ended on a distinctly anticlimactic note, but they were rather better then the rest of the fools that had gone. At least they hadn't stated anything blatantly false, like one group's assertion that WWI started in 1912.

  The bell rang, jolting me uncomfortably out of my thoughts. Even with being distracted, I was still one of the first ones into the hall, a skill I had perfected over long years of practice.

  Of course, it helped that I had already packed all my things away, but that detail's negligible.

  "Laycha!" I forced myself not to freeze at Darien's commanding voice, but only to turn casually. He needed someone who wouldn't obey him blindly.

  "Yeah?" He walked quickly- no hurrying for a McGavern- up to me.

  "You did well today," he informed me. I would have taken it as the compliment it ostensibly was, except for the condescension saturating his voice.

  "Why thank you!" I cooed with obviously false sincerity, "So did you."

  He actually flinched. Barely perceptibly, but it was most definitely a wince.

  "Stop," he ordered curtly.

  "Stop what?" If he was going to try to command me, well, I could be as literal minded as the worst jinni.

  He half-shuddered.

  "Talking like them."

  "Who?"

  "My groupies," he explained. I smirked. Well, now that I know it scares him…

  "Of course," I agreed in the same tone as before. He scowled, but it looked less vicious then before, almost good-natured. He wasn't mad, that much I knew, but he still walked away without answering. He apparently knew that after giving out that choice piece of weakness, he was doomed to lose to me forever after. Score one for me.

  But it was weird for hi
m not to even try to argue. In our unusual burst of interaction lately, he had always fought tooth and nail until one of us lost (generally him). It felt kind of… nice to have an almost civil conversation with him. Well, civil for us, anyway. Maybe-barely even a maybe, it's so farfetched- he wasn't as bad as I had thought. The insufferable arrogance and callousness could be just a shield.

  I turned around at a whimper from behind me. A freshman was scurrying out of the way of Darien's glare to allow Darien the first spot in line for lunch.

  Or he really could just be an intolerable bastard.

  o0O0o0O0o

  I sat in my room, notes spread out over the desk. I was doing my true work now: to mix and match these people until the most possible people were happy.

  The names were spread into 2 columns, boys on the left and girls on the right. For those who that didn't apply-I did work with gay couples, as long as I was informed of both parties homosexuality-there was a pile on the left to be dealt with later.

  I picked the first name at random from the right. Grace O'Shea. She was a popular girl, a bit flighty, but one of the better ones. Not a groupie of Darien or any of the jocks. She was only annoying because of a persistent optimism and naiveté, along with a lack of ability to focus for long times. She would need someone to counter balance that. Maybe… yes, Joe Marrato would do. He was less then popular-rather a lot less- but they still had a lot of things in common (Grace was a closet studier), although he was more grounded and jaded to offset Grace.

  I pulled out a sheet of blank, anonymous notepaper and began drafting my notes to them. She could work with a note giving a name, time, and place. He might take more effort, adding to that a list of her interests and what he should wear and do.

  The Thai place should do for the date. It had good food, but wasn't frequented by many students, which would be important to Grace. She wouldn't stand him up, though; no one stood a Matchmaker date up. It was well known that if they did, the Matchmaker would no longer work for them, and very few people wanted to risk that. Still, it would be a good idea to let Grace become accustomed to Joe before they went public.