by Lisa Yee
“And you didn’t say, ‘Hey thanks, Nick. You did a great job, we couldn’t have won without your hard work.’ ”
“I’m supposed to say stuff like that? I thought you knew.”
“How can I know if you don’t tell me …?”
I felt like I was arguing with Roo.
“AH-HEM!!!”
Startled, Nick and I looked over at Rolvo.
“This chatfest is all very lovely,” Monarch said, getting out and stretching her arms above her head. “But I have to pee.”
Nick’s jaw dropped.
“Mr. Bing, where are your manners?” Monarch said coyly as she slowly circled Nick. “Who’s this well-dressed young man?”
When Monarch winked at Nick, I noticed that he was wearing blue plaid pajamas. As long as I’ve known him, he’s worn pajamas to bed. Even on debate trips when the other guys slept in T-shirts and boxers, there was Nick in his pajamas. The weird thing was that they’ve always been those exact same blue plaid pajamas, just in bigger and bigger sizes.
Nick looked scared. He didn’t move, as if afraid that Monarch would attack. Knowing her, she might have.
“Oh, excuse me. Monarch, this is Nicholas ‘Nick’ Milgram, my best friend. Nick, this is Monarch, no last name, my … my …”
She reached out and shook his hand so hard that his head bobbled. “I’m Higgs’s muse,” she announced. “Now, tell me, Mr. Milgram, do you happen to have a bathroom inside that lovely house of yours?”
“Through the door, to the left,” he said robotically. “But don’t wake my mom.”
“I thank you,” Monarch said. She gifted him with a smile. “And my bladder thanks you.”
Nick and I watched as she galumphed toward his house. When Monarch disappeared inside, he turned to me, his eyes wide. “What the hell was that?!!!”
“Monarch,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. “My muse. She lives in the woods.”
He shook his head as if trying to decipher what I had just told him. “She lives in the woods? What, like some sort of fairy goblin or Hobbit?”
“Something like that. It’s really hard to explain.”
Nick began bouncing up and down on his toes. He did this when we were debating too. The competition thought it was to throw them off, but really, it was how he stayed focused.
“Are you two — together?” he asked.
“That’s the best cross-ex you can come up with?”
“Well,” he said, throwing me an evil grin, “clearly I’m no Higgs Boson Bing, first speaker.”
I laughed. I had missed Nick so much. “No, we’re not together in the Biblical sense if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“Thought so,” he said. “She doesn’t seem your type.”
“What exactly is my type?” I wondered out loud.
“Beauty queen-ish,” he started to say, “like Roo …”
Just then, Monarch came out of the house. She was carrying an armful of water bottles, a loaf of bread, plus a couple of towels, a potted plant, and a Popsicle. “I hope you don’t mind if I borrow these,” she said. “I found them in the kitchen.”
Clearly flustered, Nick began to blink rapidly. “Oh, sure,” he told her. “Yeah, uh, help yourself. Sure. Okay. Yeah. Take whatever you want. Yes.”
And that was why I was a better debate speaker than Nick Milgram.
Monarch handed me the Popsicle. “Here, Higgs.” When I started to unwrap it, she stopped me. “It’s not to eat. Put it on your eye, it’ll help stop the swelling.
“We would love to stay and chat,” Monarch was saying to Nick as she played with his hair. He was frozen stiff and blinking rapidly. “But it could be dangerous to stay here. I saw it on the news.” Monarch lowered her voice to imitate a news anchor, “Mice on the loose at Monte Vista Mall.”
“You saw it on the news?” I asked.
“You heard me. Someone shot a video of the mice running around.” She turned to Nick. “By the way, that’s some big-assed TV you have.”
He blushed.
“Is anyone recognizable on the video?” I asked.
Monarch shook her head. “Only if you know who you’re looking for.”
“What are we talking about?” Nick asked.
“Higgs, c’mon, we gotta go,” Monarch said, trying to make her voice sound small and scared, but not succeeding. “There are bad guys on the loose.”
“You don’t have anything to worry about,” Nick assured her. “This is a really safe area.”
“Really, Nick. Is that so?” Monarch said. “No troublemakers of any kind?”
“No,” he said sincerely. “We have neighborhood watch.”
I tried to suppress a grin.
“Nick,” I said, “will you text my mom? Tell her my cell phone battery is dead, but I’m staying at your house, and remind her there’s no school for seniors tomorrow.”
He looked at me, then Monarch, then back at me. Then it was time for Nick to suppress a grin. “Sure thing,” he said as Monarch and I got in Rolvo.
It wasn’t until we were a couple miles away that I suddenly remembered why we had gone to Nick’s in the first place.
“Go back,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because I forgot the clothes and the money.”
“Forget it,” Monarch said, stepping on the gas. “Not worth it. Never go back. Besides, you look sexy in a pink bathrobe.”
I awoke confused. It took me a while to figure out that I was in the Airstream. My back ached and there was a serious crick in my neck. My entire body felt battered and I had a killer hangover, though I couldn’t even recall drinking. As I slowly sat up, I made old-man noises — the kind of grunts that came out of my dad when he spent the night on the couch.
“Monarch?” I called out.
There was no answer. The pink bathrobe was wadded up in the corner next to my shoes. I was naked, and couldn’t find my boxers anywhere. What time was it? I needed to take a piss. I slipped on the bathrobe and went outside. Rolvo’s keys were gone and so was Monarch.
Without a phone, wheels, or clothes, there wasn’t much I could do. So I waited, and waited. At least I had Stuart to keep me company. I lifted him out of his box and nuzzled him. He really was an exceptional mouse. Gentle, smart, loyal. Everything you could ask for in a pet, or a friend. As Stuart timidly explored the trailer, I picked up Monarch’s copy of Les Misérables. It was in French, so I couldn’t read it. Instead, I began On the Road.
Forty pages into the book, Monarch showed up carrying two big bags. She was singing a Wonton Weasels song. One bag was full of groceries, the other was from La Mode, an upscale department store.
I pulled the bathrobe tighter around my waist, but it barely closed.
“Here,” she said, tossing the La Mode bag to me. She took out tins of oysters, crackers, chocolates, and a newspaper from the other bag.
“You read the newspaper?” I asked. I was starving.
Monarch looked insulted, then admitted, “I read the comics. Put on some clothes.” She motioned to the La Mode bag. Inside were boxers, socks, a T-shirt, and running shorts.
“Turn around,” I told her as I took off the robe and put on the clothes.
“Oooh, suddenly modest, are we?” she asked flirtatiously.
“Did we …? Did you and I …? Last night …?”
Monarch let go of one of her deep, throaty laughs. “If we had, you would have remembered,” she assured me.
We both blushed.
“I don’t remember much, except for being beat up, and then going to Nick’s,” I admitted. “And, um, why was I naked?”
“You peed in your underwear,” Monarch said.
I wished I hadn’t asked.
“Higgs, you were hurting and in total denial. So I gave you a double dose of pain killers and they knocked you out.”
“Pain killers? Where did those come from?”
“Courtesy of Angela M. Milgram.”
“Nick’s mother gave them to you?”
“Nope,” Monarch said as she expertly opened the oyster tin. “I took them from the medicine cabinet.”
I looked down at my new clothes and the food Monarch was putting on paper plates. Suddenly, I wasn’t hungry. “Where did you get the money for all that?” I asked. “You didn’t steal from Nick’s mom did you?”
“No,” Monarch said defensively. “Jesus, Higgs. Have some faith in me.”
“So how did you pay for all this stuff?”
She opened the Airstream door. Her back was to me, and her shoulders looked tense. Monarch took a deep breath, and I watched as her entire body relaxed. “I pawned the necklace,” she said, turning to face me.
I felt like I had been hit again.
“You can’t do that,” I protested.
“I just did,” Monarch said defiantly. “You gave it to me. It belonged to me.”
I slumped down against the side of the trailer. “Maybe I’d better go home,” I told her.
“Why? I thought we were having fun.”
“This isn’t right,” I said. “My mom might be worried about me. Plus, I have to take care of that whole Harvard thing. You might not understand this, but Harvard is what I’ve been working toward most of my life. If I don’t go, my parents are going to flip out.”
Monarch looked serious for a change. “I do know how you feel,” she said, picking at one of the croissants. “Higgs, there’s something I should tell you —”
“What?”
“I … I … All this talk about you, and college, and well, you see …” Monarch’s voice trailed off and suddenly she looked different. Less self-assured. Nervous. She began to absentmindedly turn the pages of the newspaper on the counter. “You see, Higgs,” Monarch hesitated. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
I stood up straighter, which was hard to do in an Airstream. “Yes?”
“I’m not … I’m not … I’m not … Audrey Hepburn!” Monarch yelped. “There’s an Audrey Hepburn film festival playing over in Rancho Rosetta. We HAVE to go to that!” she said, pointing to the newspaper.
“That’s what you wanted to tell me?” I was more than mildly disappointed. I had thought she was going to tell me some incredible secret. The kind where if you betrayed it, you could be killed.
Monarch was still talking. “You don’t have school, that’s all done. Neither one of us wants to be cooped up in this tin can right now. And it’s Audrey Hepburn.”
“Audrey who?”
“Come on. You might learn a thing or two.”
“What about Stuart?”
“He’ll be fine here,” Monarch said, grabbing my hand. “Come on, we’re going to the movies!”
Roman Holiday had already started. “That’s Audrey Hepburn,” Monarch explained as we settled in. There was a waiflike girl on the screen. “She’s a princess pretending to be a commoner. Gregory Peck is a reporter. He knows she’s a fraud, but he plays along to get a good story. Plus, he’s crushing on her.”
I shook my head. “I’m not into this sort of —”
Before I could finish, Monarch cut me off. “Higgs,” she said, “Chill. Stop worrying about the world and escape for a while.”
That might have been the best advice I ever got. I settled into my seat, but I wasn’t watching the film, I was watching Monarch. Even in the dark, I could see her eyes sparkling. It was just Monarch and me, and Audrey Hepburn and Atticus Finch. A double date.
As the movie wore on, I put my arm around Monarch, and when she didn’t slug me, I was glad that the theater was dark so no one could see me smiling. With all the shit going on in my life, she was the one good thing keeping me afloat and I wasn’t about to let go of her.
I nuzzled her neck and then kissed her as Audrey Hepburn put her hand into a statue called the Mouth of Truth.
Monarch laughed as she swatted me away. Not exactly the response I was hoping for. But it wasn’t a flat-out rejection either. “Stop it,” she said, laughing. “I’m trying to watch the movie.”
I didn’t try to kiss her again, but as a concession, I kept my arm around her, delighted that she let me.
As the credits rolled, Monarch stared at the screen, unmoving. The lights came on and I looked at her, surprised. “You’re crying!” I said.
“I am not,” she said, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “I have allergies.”
“No, no, you are crying,” I insisted.
“I AM NOT CRYING,” Monarch shouted before running out of the theater.
* * *
I found Monarch in the parking lot, leaning up against Rolvo and puffing on a cigarette.
“I wasn’t crying,” she said defensively. There were makeup smudges under her eyes.
“I know,” I said, adding, “I love you.”
“What?”
“You heard me.” She wasn’t going to make this easy.
“Wow, those guys who beat you up really rattled your brain,” Monarch said. She blew her nose loudly, and then wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
“I love you.”
“Seriously, Higgs, stop saying that. It’s getting annoying. I mean, really. How can you mean it when we’ve only known each other for four days?”
“Five days,” I corrected her. “And I just know.”
“How? Explain.”
“Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck fell in love in less time than we’ve known each other,” I said.
When Monarch opened her mouth and no words came out, I won my point. For someone who came off as so tough, she had a soft spot.
“So, what did you think of the movie?” she asked, leaning toward me. “Didn’t you love it?”
“It was okay.”
“Okay?” she croaked. “The princess went on an adventure that she will never forgot. She stepped out from behind the repressive life that was cast for her and had a glorious lark.”
“And then back to her responsibilities when it was over,” I reminded Monarch. “It wasn’t a happy ending.”
“She was bound by duty to her family, and her fate had been cast at birth,” she parried. “What she did was admirable. It was bittersweet and she should be applauded for her loyalty to family. It was her destiny.”
“It wasn’t a happy ending,” I repeated.
You okay?” I asked.
Monarch was tired of driving, so I was at the wheel.
“We’ve had a pretty good time together, haven’t we?” she said, sounding far away.
“It wasn’t awful,” I said, when what I really meant was that, despite all the shit that had gone down, it had been the best week of my life.
This made Monarch laugh. I was about to tell her that I loved her again, but I didn’t want to risk pissing her off. Monarch’s mood had shifted, and she turned and faced the window, not saying a word for the rest of the ride.
Later, as we walked across the gravel pit, there was a sadness in the air that I could not place. Monarch didn’t seem like herself. She was unusually quiet, and once when I tripped, she didn’t even make fun of me.
“Big day for you tomorrow, isn’t it?” Monarch finally said as more of a statement than a question. “High school seniors all over the country are graduating.”
“Graduation and my Harvard interview,” I reminded her. “Time to suck it up.”
It was dark. My heart skipped a beat when Monarch slipped her arm through mine. Her steps slowed. “Yeah, reality sucks,” she said, sounding bitter.
I don’t know why I was surprised to hear this. I guess I had admired the way she was living, without anyone or anything to be accountable to. Carefree. But when I really thought about it — living in a trailer with no electricity, no running water, no income — maybe it wasn’t so wonderful after all. I wondered how long Monarch had been on her own. It couldn’t have been easy.
“You don’t have to live like you do,” I ventured. She raised an eyebrow. “I mean, what if you went back to school, graduated, got a job? Maybe even went to college. Clearly, you’re sm
art.”
Monarch snorted. “What — so I can be a dentist like you and cure the world of gingivitis? Is that your definition of happiness? What’s in it for you, other than making your father happy?”
“It’s what I want to do,” I said. It sounded like someone else talking. “I mean, I’ve always wanted to be a dentist. Sure. Yeah, it’s what I want.”
If this had been a debate, my opponent would have surely caught the hesitancy in my response and annihilated me.
“And Harvard,” Monarch asked. “That’s your dream too?”
“Yes, Harvard,” I said, aware that I had made it sound more like a question than an answer.
“Well, what’s your definition of happiness, then?” I said quickly.
In debate, when you don’t have a solid answer to your opponent’s line of questioning, you redirect the subject.
Monarch stopped walking. “You really want to know?”
I nodded.
“I’d love to be an actress,” she confided. Monarch looked deliriously happy when she said this. “Slipping in and out of roles, and getting paid for it. But that’ll never happen.”
“Why not?
“Because” was all she said, in a way that told me the conversation was closed.
I wondered if she would be any good at acting. I didn’t think so. I couldn’t imagine Monarch being anyone but herself.
“Wait here,” she said when her trailer was in sight. Monarch left me standing next to a rotted-out tree stump. After a couple of minutes, she came out of the trailer carrying Stuart’s box and with the Robe of Depression draped over her arm. “These are yours.”
“You’re acting like we’re never going to see each other again,” I joked. When she didn’t smile, my mouth suddenly went dry. “Wait. You are planning on never seeing me again, aren’t you?”
Monarch just shook her head. “We had fun. We had laughs. And now it’s over. You go your way and I’ll go mine.”
“I … I don’t understand. Was it something I said? Something I did?”
“Didn’t you pay any attention to the movie?” Monarch asked.
“What movie? Roman Holiday? Okay, I am officially confused.”
“Poor sweet Higgs,” Monarch said. She ran her finger across my lips. “The clock is striking midnight and it’s time to turn back into a pumpkin. Farewell, Higgs Boson Bing.”