Unconventional

by Maggie Harcourt

  “It’s the gallery.”

  “Well, yeah – but what’s up there?”

  “No, it’s literally the gallery. It’s where the art show is.”

  “Oh. Oh? Can we get to it from here?”

  He’s looking right at the open stairs against the wall. Maybe he thinks they’re some kind of Escher-inspired installation…?

  “It’s not locked or anything. If you want to…”

  I don’t even get to finish, because by the time I’m halfway through saying it, he’s striding towards the stairs with those long legs of his in that way that makes it look like he knows exactly where he’s going. Even when he doesn’t. What’s that like? I wonder. Being able to give the impression that you know it all and nothing can bother you and you’re absolutely in control; making yourself be in control.

  Oh, of course I know. I do it all the time; it’s what the clipboard’s for – to give the impression I know what I’m doing…

  Ah.

  That’s what he was doing in the green room, the first time we met, wasn’t it? He was doing it then, pretending he knew what he was doing, pretending he was in control. And the stupid comments about the clipboard were his way of telling me we’re the same. And I thought he was being a prick.

  Ah. Oh well. Nobody’s perfect, I guess.

  “Come on!” He leans over the rail of the stairs and waves down at me, impatient, and I’m torn between running to catch up with him and standing beneath him and stopping, just to look up at him with his glasses sliding down his nose and his hair curling wildly after the day’s heat and humidity – even in here, even in the middle of the night.

  He was right.

  We’re not locked in here.

  Everybody else is locked out.

  And I could leave the rest of the world locked out, if only it meant I got to stay in here with him a little longer.

  “Lexi! Come on! What are you standing there for?”

  So I stop standing still, and I run.

  The fluorescents aren’t as bright upstairs – most of the lights are below our feet up here – and Aidan peers into the relative gloom of the art show with a disappointed face.

  “Wait here,” I say, pointing at the floor to make sure he knows where “here” is (sometimes there really is too much of my father in me). I duck round the corner behind the stairs. “Ready?”

  “Lexi…”

  I flick the switch on the lighting panel and a hundred tiny white spotlights flare into life; each of them carefully positioned to bring out the best in the art they’re illuminating. The boring grey of the gallery floor is suddenly a wash of vibrant reds and blues. Fairy-tale castles shimmer on canvases, blown-glass sculptures in every shade of the rainbow glitter on stands. Across the void, a life-size ceramic hooded man stands frozen with his hand on the hilt of a sword tucked into his belt – and behind him, a sea monster’s tentacles crash out of a painting onto a beach made from pebbles that Nadiya and Bede helped a local artist collect across the road yesterday morning.

  I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone’s jaw actually drop before – but Aidan’s does. “Wow.”

  “Impressive, isn’t it?”

  “I was thinking this afternoon that I wasn’t that bothered about the art show so I’d give it a miss.”

  “Seriously?” I think I’m offended on behalf of the artists who’ve put so much into their work – not to mention all of us who spent hours getting splinters and blisters setting it up…

  “I’ve spent a lot of time in art galleries, Lexi,” he says with a wry smile. “But I’m glad I missed it anyway.” His whole expression, his whole face, softens. “Because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t get to see it like this.” He turns away from the art as I walk back over to him; looks right at me. “With you.”

  This is too much for the tired, overworked bit of my brain – which immediately takes control. I hear a voice – my voice – replying to him. And what do I lead with? “Do you want to see the insects?”

  Snap me in half, and you’d see ROMANCE written all the way through me like a stick of Brighton rock.

  He blinks at me. “The insects?”

  “They’re much better than they sound. Honest.”

  “You really know how to sell them, don’t you?”

  “Just…shut up and come see them.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Aidan.”

  His name feels different in my mouth – heavier and lighter at the same time – and it’s all I can do not to keep saying it over and over.

  Of course, it has been a long time since I slept, so there’s always that to consider…

  We pass a large painting of superheroes fighting Vikings; another of a ballroom filled with waltzing skeletons, the wisps of fabric drifting behind them so real I want to catch one and run it through my fingers… And then we reach the corner, where the wood backdrop has been covered in plain white fabric, blinding in the spotlights. Suspended in front of them, hanging on almost invisible nylon threads, are what look like hundreds of tiny dots.

  I make a dramatic arrival sound. “Ta-da. This is it.”

  “This?” Aidan looks a bit nonplussed. I don’t blame him; it’s completely nonplussing until you see it.

  “Here. Look closer.” I hand him an oversized magnifying glass hanging from a chain and he peers through it at one of the dots – and then his eyes open so wide behind his glasses that I’m almost afraid they might drop out.

  “Holy shit.”

  “Everybody says that.”

  I know what he’s seen, but I stand beside him and peer round his shoulder to see it the way he is, right now. It’s a bumblebee in mid-flight…and on its back is a tiny skeletal fairy with wings like a fly’s.

  Aidan steps back – the way everyone does when they realize what all those little dangling dots really are – and treads on my toe. He spins around – “Sorry, sorry” – and we’re so close that our noses are almost touching. Or, you know, my nose and his chin.

  He doesn’t move away.

  Neither do I.

  My skin buzzes as though someone’s run a current through it. As though Aidan has. Like he’s lightning.

  Close up, his eyes are somewhere between blue and grey, flecked with tiny silver specks.

  He still doesn’t move away…and I can’t.

  I can’t move.

  It comes from nowhere. I have no idea it’s about to happen until it does.

  I look deep into his eyes and breathe in the smell of him – that salt and ocean, sunshine and late-night smell…

  And I yawn in his face.

  I clamp my hands over my mouth…but it’s too late. The damage is done, isn’t it?

  I look into those sea-grey eyes in horror…and to my surprise (delight? Shock? Relief? All of these things and a hundred more?) he starts to laugh. And I start to laugh with him.

  “Maybe you’re right – I wasn’t prepared for an all-nighter either. When did you start work this morning?”

  “Umm, seven? Maybe.” Well, that’s a lie. I was in the ops office at half past six, but that sounds like the kind of thing only a crazy person would own up to.

  “You’ve been up since seven this…yesterday…morning?”

  “What time is it now?”

  “Three. Although I don’t think that changes the time you actually got up, does it?”

  I try to do the maths in my head and work out how long it’s been since I got out of bed.

  Nope.

  First time I try, I get fifteen hours. The second time, it’s thirty-two. Neither of which feels quite right.

  “It’s twenty. Twenty hours,” he says. “You were trying to work it out, weren’t you?”

  “No. Yes. How could you tell?” I stifle another yawn.

  “You were counting on your fingers.”

  Oh.

  I put my hands behind my back. They’re safer there anyway; they can’t accidentally brush his chest or his hips or reach for his shoulders or his jaw or…
/>
  Hands. Behind. Back.

  “Is there anywhere to sit, maybe lie down? A couple of sofas?” He sounds hopeful but I shake my head.

  “Not in the trader’s room – only the standard chairs for them at each table.”

  “I guess we’ll have to make do, then.”

  When he reaches around me, I freeze. When he takes my hand, I burn. Together, we walk down the stairs from the gallery and my feet are so heavy all of a sudden that I can barely lift them, barely put one in front of the other.

  Aidan steers us to a corner at the back of the traders’ room, away from the brightest of the fluorescent lights.

  “Here. Sit down. You need a rest.”

  I feel his hands guide me as I lean back against the wall and slide down to the floor.

  “If I had a jacket, this is the point I’d give it to you for a pillow. But I don’t. Sorry.”

  “’S all right.”

  He sits down beside me, his back to the wall and his legs stretched out in front of him – and suddenly it’s the most normal thing in the world to rest my head on his shoulder, and it’s not awkward at all.

  “You said you’ve been in a lot of galleries – tell me about your favourite.” I keep waiting for him to shrug me away, to move, anything – but he doesn’t. If anything, he edges closer.

  “The Holburne at home.”

  “Home?”

  “Bath. I live in Bath.”

  “Oh.” If I wasn’t so tired, I’d be disappointed – part of me has been hoping he’s a Londoner like I am. The same part of me that has been half-hoping I’d run into him on the street – any street, any day – every day since May. I lift my head and settle it again, more comfortably – and still he doesn’t move. “How come you stayed in the hotel in Bristol? You could’ve gone home…”

  I’m over the road… Last-minute thing…

  “Yeah, I could have done,” he says softly. “But then I wouldn’t have got to spend that time with you, would I?”

  Before I can answer, or even really think, sleep turns out all the lights.

  “Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty…”

  At first, I think the voice is part of my dream – but no part of my subconscious has ever called me “Sleeping Beauty”, mostly because it knows well enough it would get kicked in the head if it did. It’s too deep a voice to be Sam’s, and I don’t remember setting my radio alarm…

  I open an eye.

  Rodney.

  What?

  Why is Rodney next to my bed? And why do I have such a god-awful crick in my neck?

  I’m not in bed, am I?

  The thing I’m resting my head against, the thing that up until a moment ago I thought was my pillow, groans and shifts slightly – and everything comes flooding back.

  Aidan. Pistachios under the table. Wigs and streetlights and lightning.

  Aidan.

  Which means…

  I blink and straighten, only to see Rodney standing in front of me, his arms folded over his newspaper and the biggest shit-eating grin I have ever seen on his face.

  “Morning, Lexi. And friend.”

  “Morning?”

  “Mmm-hmm. Your dad’s looking for you, young lady.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Seven thirty.”

  “Thewhennow?”

  I scramble to my feet, knocking into bleary-eyed Aidan and trying to ignore Rodney’s laughter. “Where is he?”

  “The top room.”

  “Right.” I sprint for the main door – unlocked at last – and risk one quick backwards glance at Aidan, sitting up and blinking in the bright sunshine pouring in through the glass roof. “I’ll find you later!”

  In the corridor outside, the early risers among the traders are already making their way up from breakfast, ready to open their stalls for the last day of the convention. None of them seem particularly surprised to see me running past them – why would they be? Most of them are regulars, and have seen me racing past them in one direction or another for years. One of them – a woman from the biggest trading cards stall – even shouts “Morning, Lexi!” after me.

  “Morning!” I take the grand staircase down to the hotel’s main lobby two stairs at a time and skid to a halt in front of the narrow cargo lift beside the reception desk. It’s the fastest way up to the meeting room at the very top of the hotel, half a dozen floors up. I hate this lift – it rattles and creaks and is generally crotchety and awful and crap – but it’s still faster than me trying to run up all those stairs right now. Besides, if Dad’s already looking for me, it means he actually wanted to see me ten minutes ago; he only ever starts looking for me when I haven’t magically appeared by his side fast enough.

  Being a cargo lift, there are no mirrors in there – which means it feels even smaller than it is, a little like standing in a tiny metal coffin, and I have to attempt to make myself more presentable using guesswork alone. Nothing’s going to help the morning breath though; my mouth feels like someone came along and lined it with mouldy carpet during the night. And then the lift jerks to a halt and the doors rattle open, and there – against the backdrop of floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the sea and the ruins of the West Pier with the observation tower holding up the sky above it all – is my father. He’s checking the water jugs and glasses for the Q&A session in here later, and even across the room I can tell how angry he is. It’s coming off him in waves.

  “You wanted to see me?”

  “Where’ve you been, Lexi?”

  “The lift’s really slow, and—”

  “Nobody saw you last night. Anywhere. You didn’t answer your phone, and Samira tells me you didn’t go back to your room.”

  He noticed.

  “You called me?”

  “Sam did. When she didn’t get an answer, she called me.”

  I should have known.

  “Oh.”

  “Well?”

  “Funny story, actually.” I raise my hand to shield my eyes from the glare coming off the water. “Do we need to pull the curtains across, do you think?”

  It’s not enough to distract him – but it was worth a try.

  “Lexi. Where were you?”

  There’s no point in trying to hide it. “I got locked in the convention centre.”

  “All night?”

  “All night.”

  “How on earth…?”

  “Haydn Swift thought he left his phone in panel room one. We went back to check, and Rodney locked us in.”

  “Stop.” Dad holds up his hand. “Back to the beginning. Who?”

  “Haydn Swift.”

  “I know that name… Oh. The author?”

  “Yes?” My voice is suddenly a five-year-old’s.

  “You managed to get yourself locked in the convention space overnight with a male author who is several years older than you are?”

  “He’s nineteen, Dad.”

  “And you are seventeen. Which makes you not an adult.”

  “It’s not like—”

  “Ah. No.” He holds up a warning finger. “It is like.” Finger still raised, he rubs his face with the other hand. “What were you thinking? You don’t know him. Anything could have happened!”

  “But—”

  “Why didn’t you call? I could have let you out – Sam could have, anyone on the staff could have. Were you embarrassed? Was that it?” He’s started pacing up and down in front of the window. “I mean, if any of the traders find out, they’ll start asking about insurance – did anything get damaged?”

  “No, Dad. We were really careful, I promise…”

  He doesn’t seem to hear me. “There’s the artists in the art show, all the book traders, the collectible traders…” He stops dead in his tracks and spins to face me, narrowing his eyes. “Lexi Angelo. If I thought for one minute you had done this on purpose…”

  “What? Why? Why would I do that?”

  “To spend time with a…a boy…”

  “Jesus, Da
d.”

  “Lexi…”

  “I tried to call, okay? But my phone didn’t work in the panel room or anywhere else – there’s no reception. What was I supposed to do?”

  It probably would have worked on the roof. If I’d tried…

  “Use the fire exit.”

  “Set off the alarms and get the whole hotel evacuated? Yeah, you’d have loved that, wouldn’t you?” I grumble.

  At first, I don’t understand why I’m so annoyed; why everything he says grates against the inside of my head – and then I get it. It was Sam who noticed I was missing. It was Sam who told him. My own father, who tells me how indispensable I am during a convention, who tells me how much he loves me, who I’ve always been so desperate not to disappoint; he didn’t notice. And now he knows, his first response isn’t that something might have happened to me overnight, it’s that we might have broken something in the traders’ room.

  “I don’t have time for this.” He’s stopped looking at me, and is now furiously straightening the already-straight pads and pencils at each space around the table. “I have a convention to run.”

  “Like I hadn’t noticed. And as we all know, the conventions are what matter most, aren’t they? Never mind what anybody else needs. ‘What’s that, Lexi? You have an essay on Napoleon and a project on modern English drama due in on Monday? Well, instead of doing those, you can send all these emails! You need to talk to me? Sorry – banquet seating!’”

  “Lexi…”

  I ignore the warning in his voice. I don’t care. I don’t. What can he do to me? He’s already shown me how much he takes everything I do for granted; all the juggling, all the fitting everything – life, school, feelings, everything – around what he needs. Around what the conventions need. And now he has Bea, and that’s great…but where does it leave me? Who can I turn to? Sam? Nadiya? Bede? Who’s my Lexi? Who has my back? It’s supposed to be my dad. It’s supposed to be him – but it never has been, has it? And I’ve let him get away with it.

  “What’s this about, Alexandra?” Dad bangs his hand on the table, and even though I’m watching him – even though I see him raise his palm and bring it down again – the sound still makes me jump.

  “It’s not about anything,” I lie – and even to me, I sound petulant. Or maybe it’s only half a lie – it’s not about anything; it’s about everything. It’s about the fact I’ve spent my whole life fitting in with Dad’s plans, Dad’s life, Dad’s job, Dad’s conventions. That’s always been my world, whether I wanted it to be or not – I never got a choice. And right now, it feels like my entire relationship with my father revolves around whether the next hotel has enough space, or whether they’ve confirmed our banquet reservations or whatever.