by Alex Flinn
“The fun kind.”
I have never heard of a party without gowns. This is turning out to be a very disappointing century.
Within a few minutes, Jack has invaded Meryl’s room (over her protests) and procured for me a shirt with the words ABERCROMBIE & FITCH emblazoned across the chest. There was a Fitch family in Euphrasia, but they were plagued by insanity. I decide not to mention this. He also tries to get me to wear something called a bathing suit, which consists of a rather small scrap of yellow cloth.
“I cannot wear that,” I say. “It is immodest. It is…obscene.”
I have a fleeting notion that Jack is playing a trick on me, that this garment is merely an undergarment and his insistence that I wear it merely a ruse to see me unclothed. Although he will be within his rights to demand such privileges after our nuptials, I cannot consent before.
“It’s a one-piece,” Jack says.
“One piece of what?” I demand. “I cannot wear it.”
“I don’t want her to borrow it, anyway,” Meryl says. “You go, girl! Tell him you won’t wear it.”
“Not helpful,” Jack says. To me, he says, “That’s what people wear to go swimming nowadays…in this century.”
“Well, then, it is very simple, then,” I say, “because I cannot swim.”
Jack sighs, and I know he is angry. For this, I am sorry, as he has been kind and I wish to please him. I wish to marry him, in fact.
“Can you get out of my room now?” Meryl asks. I note that she is once again clutching her sketch pad. “Some people are trying to work.”
“I am sorry,” I tell Jack. “Perhaps American young ladies wear such garments and swim and…” I think of the young girls—I would not call them ladies—who have just left. “…and hang on to young men in a shameless manner. But I am not an American young lady. There are certain compromises I am unwilling to make. I do appreciate your kindness.”
If Jack is indeed my destiny, he should understand, and love me for myself.
Of course, at the moment, he does not love me at all.
Chapter 11:
Jack
I’m sitting on the sofa with Talia, eating Doritos and watching Judge Judy. Meryl’s in her room, sulking.
“This is fascinating.” Talia licks Doritos cheese off her fingers.
“What’s fascinating?” I ask her now. “Me?”
“No.” She laughs. “I mean, yes, of course. But I was talking about your American system of justice.”
We’ve been watching two women argue about whether the first woman’s pit bull damaged the second woman’s car when it climbed on top of the car to sunbathe. The pit-bull woman is wearing a tube top and has nails that are longer than most people’s fingers. The other woman has on sequins. “What’s fascinating about it?”
“What isn’t?” Talia’s eyes widen. “This woman, Judge Judy. She is so wise.”
I shrug. “I guess.”
“And they let her decide the whole case—they leave it up to her?”
“She’s the judge.”
“Yes! But she is a woman, and yet they trust her opinion. Had I stayed in Euphrasia, I would someday be queen. I would have been charged with appointing all the magistrates in Euphrasia. But women could not become magistrates, for their judgment is warped. They would be inconsistent.”
I think of Amber and how she acted sometimes, totally in love with me one day and then like I wasn’t fit to carry her used lunch tray the next. It doesn’t sound like a totally terrible system of justice to me. Not that I’m going to say that to Talia.
“But if you were queen, couldn’t you appoint whoever you wanted? Isn’t that part of being queen?”
Talia frowns. “I do not know.”
Judge Judy is ordering the first woman to pay for the pit bull’s damage. Talia claps with delight. “That is exactly what I would have done.”
She looks so cute I feel like kissing her.
That’s when my mother walks in.
Mom apparently used the opportunity of me in Europe and Meryl at camp to get some work done. At least she looks “rested,” code for the fact that her face is frozen into a stiff smile.
“Jack, darling!” she says through lips that don’t move sideways. “You’re home!” She blows me a little air kiss.
Meryl, who has come downstairs to witness the scene, mimics it. “Yes, you’re home, dear boy!”
My sister’s wearing this shirt that says: I’m multi-talented. I can talk and annoy you at the same time. An understatement. Except that my sister doesn’t actually talk that much. She either sulks or does stuff to try and bait me. Right now, she’s carrying around that stupid sketch pad she’s completely obsessed with and will never show anyone—probably because she’s drawing our mutilated corpses. I glare at her, and she sticks out her tongue. “Aren’t you going to introduce Mommy to your friend, Jack?”
“Do you ever brush your hair?” I snap back at her.
“Only for people who are worth the effort.”
I decide it’s time to give Mom a big hug. “Mom! You look great! I’d forgotten how young you are.” I gesture to Talia. “This is Talia, the girl I met in Belgium.”
One thing about my mom—she’s always calm, like the time last year when Travis and I got caught egging cars on Eighty-second Avenue. Mom stayed calm, calm enough that I wondered if she even cared.
You have to really know her to know when she’s freaking. I do. Her smile is wider than when she’s actually happy, and her voice is higher.
Now she smiles blindingly. Holding out a hand with nail-polished talons, she squeaks, “How lovely to meet you. Jack’s told us—well, actually, he’s told us nothing about you. Are you here visiting family?”
Talia glances at me, then says, “No, ma’am.”
Mom continues to smile. “Ah, friends, then?”
Another glance at me from Talia. “In a manner of speaking.”
I cut in. “I told you, Mom. She’s staying with us.”
Silence.
Then Meryl says, “I think there’s a Naruto marathon on Cartoon Network.”
My sister hasn’t watched an episode of Naruto in at least two years, but I guess it’s like how birds and squirrels disappear before a hurricane. The flight instinct just kicks in.
Mom doesn’t even seem to notice she’s gone. “Seriously, Jack, where is Talia staying?”
I look her straight in the eye. “Seriously, Mom, here.”
“Jack has been so kind to me,” Talia says in her most princessy voice, “helping me come to America and all.”
Mom’s eyebrows shoot up. “Talia, dear, would you mind joining Meryl in the family room for a moment?”
“You don’t have to do that,” I tell Talia.
Talia looks from me to Mom. “I believe I do, Jack. Your mother has asked me to, and it would only be courteous.” She curtsies to Mom, then leaves.
Mom watches her go, then turns to me. “What do you mean by this, Jack? First, leaving the tour, which we spent so much money to send you on?”
“It’s always about money, isn’t it?”
“…and then bringing home some stranger you met in Europe?”
“You’re always after me to expand my horizons.”
“By visiting a museum or something—not by bringing home Dutch drifters.” Mom still hasn’t raised her voice, but her unraised voice is getting a little strained.
“She’s from Belgium.” I stick with that because that’s what her passport says. “And she’s got perfect manners—I thought you’d like that.”
“That type always has perfect manners.”
“That type?”
“Grifters, tricksters. They take you in with their perfect manners, and then they swindle you. She could rob us, even murder us in our sleep.”
I laugh. “Talia wouldn’t do that.”
“How do you know that, Jack?”
I stop and think about it. Of course, I know because I know Talia’s actually a princess,
heir to a throne, who’s had a witch’s curse placed on her and slept three-hundred-odd years until I woke her while looking for the beach. But I don’t think that explanation’s exactly going to fly with Mom. She’d call the FBI before you could say “grounded until graduation,” or she wouldn’t believe me.
So instead, I say, “She’s a really nice person.”
“I bet she isn’t even a teenager. She’s probably some middle-aged woman preying on young boys…”
Actually, she’s three hundred.
“…in those sleazy clothes…”
“They’re Meryl’s clothes!”
“She’s taken Meryl’s clothes?”
I begin to pace. “Does she look middle-aged?”
“Do I look middle-aged? It’s irrelevant. She can’t stay here.”
I stop pacing. Why did I agree to take Talia back to America with me? Oh, yeah, because if I didn’t, I’d still be rotting in a dungeon. But that doesn’t explain why I didn’t ditch her at the border. I definitely could have. So why didn’t I?
Oh, yeah, ’cause I’m a nice guy…which translates to “sucker.”
So why do I care if Mom kicks her out now?
I have no idea, but I do. If Mom doesn’t let her stay, she’ll be all alone in America—a foreign country to her—with no family, no friends, not even the skills to use MapQuest to find someplace to go. And she’s so trusting. And beautiful.
God, she’d be dead in a week.
“You can’t throw her in the street,” I say. “She’s just a kid. You wouldn’t want someone to kick me out, would you?”
Mom looks down. “She can call her family.”
“It’s, like, three AM in Eu…Belgium. She can’t call anyone.”
“Tomorrow, then. She can stay tonight, on the air mattress.”
“She can’t call tomorrow, either.”
“Why not?”
Good question. In the family room, Meryl’s got the TV on superloud. I rack my brain for any possible, acceptable-to-Mom reason Talia can’t call, a reason other than the fact that Talia’s family doesn’t own a phone. Could I tell her Talia would be a political prisoner if she went back home? Except I’m pretty sure Belgium is a democracy. Mom used to volunteer at a shelter for abused kids, so maybe I could tell her that Talia’s dad will beat her if she goes back…except I’m guessing Mom’s charitable instinct doesn’t include taking random abused kids into our house. Finally, I say, “Look, her parents are traveling in America, to the Grand Canyon.”
“I’m sure they have cell phones. She can call them.”
“I don’t think phones work down there.” I’m thinking fast and stupid now. “It’s all wilderness.”
Mom’s not buying it. “I’ll talk to her.” She starts into the family room.
How can you kick a princess out of your house? My mom will figure out a way.
I follow her into the family room. When we get to the door, we stop. Talia’s sitting on the sofa beside Meryl, who has her sketch pad with her, and she’s actually showing it to Talia. My sister says, “Wow, that’s incredible. It really does look a lot better that way.”
Chapter 12:
Talia
I am banished to the next room to look after Jack’s sullen sister so that Jack and his mother might whisper about me.
Hospitality has changed a great deal in the last three hundred years. In Euphrasia, when visitors came to the castle, no trouble or expense was spared—the finest food served upon gold-edged plates, sheets of linen on feather beds. Why, even when Jack came to us in my country’s darkest hour, my father ordered a peacock killed for his dinner (that is, before he threw him into the dungeon). The poorest peasant would provide a bed for a weary traveler, even if it was his own bed he was giving up.
Not now. Likely, Jack’s mother thinks I will slit their throats if permitted to sleep here. I saw it in her face: fear. People are very fearful these days. At the airport, we were poked and prodded within an inch of our lives, our shoes removed, our trunks placed inside a special machine which might see inside them, an unreasonable intrusion.
And this is the time in which I must now live, due to wicked Malvolia’s curse.
I understand, but I do not like it.
Jack’s sister, Meryl, sits upon the sofa, looking at the thing called television, which is blasting like a brass band. The characters in the play she is watching—they are all odd drawings rather than real people—seem quite angry. At least, they are hitting and kicking one another. Meryl, I note, pays them little mind. Rather, she stares at her sketch pad. She does not look up when I enter. I should be friendly to her. Our earlier conversation did not go well, but I have observed my father enough times to know that allies are important. I must make Meryl an ally.
I sneak up behind her and peer over her shoulder.
The drawing is the same one from earlier, the one which the horrid neighbor girl mocked. Now I can study it further.
The detail is striking. The ocean surrounding the mermaid, although only in black pencil, is so real it seems to roil, the sea creatures around her—eels, sharks, octopi—seem actually to swim, and the mermaid herself is so magnificently alive that I can imagine the sea fish and crustaceans doing her bidding.
At the palace, my drawing master, Signor Maratti, taught me to draw suitable subjects for young ladies—a bowl of fruit or a landscape. But, alas, artistic ability was not one of the fairies’ gifts.
Meryl has talent. Although I meant to feign admiration for her work, I do not have to. With deft strokes, she adds a curl to the mermaid’s smile. I breathe a sigh.
Meryl jumps. “What are you looking at?” She grabs the sketch pad away, making a nasty scratch upon the drawing with her pencil. “Now see what you made me do?”
I shake my head. “I apologize.” I sit down on the opposite side of the sofa from her. She compresses her body into a ball, as if she is protecting her sketch pad from me. She neither opens it nor begins to draw again. Nor does she watch the television. I attempt to watch it, but I do not know what is going on. I clear my throat.
Meryl scowls. “Are you here to talk to me again?”
I would like to talk to her. First of all, I am bored, and second, I would like to know Jack’s sister better. But I sense this would be the wrong thing to say, so instead I match her scowl with one of my own.
“Do not flatter yourself.” I learned this phrase from Jack. “Your mother sent me in here to bide the time with you so that she and Jack could discuss me.”
“Oh, yeah?” Meryl almost smiles. “She’s like that. She won’t say what she thinks to people’s faces. She’s too nice. But when your back’s turned, watch out.”
“I know quite a few people like that.”
Meryl slips open her sketch pad, taking elaborate care to face it away from me. She continues with her drawing.
There is naught for me to do but watch the television show, which appears to be about three friends, two boys and a girl, who wish to be something called ninjas. The girl has pink hair, which is lovely. No one in Euphrasia had pink hair. I know not what a ninja is, and I dare not ask Meryl, so I sit in silence and watch. Bits of it are funny, at least, and I laugh.
Meryl looks up, then back down.
A moment later, I laugh again.
“You like anime?” Meryl asks.
I take this as permission to look at her, which I do. A blank look.
“Anime?” she repeats. “Japanese cartoons?”
I shake my head. “I have never seen one.”
“You’re watching one now.”
“Oh.” I look at the screen. The pink-haired girl is hitting someone very hard. “It seems quite lovely. I like how the girl, Sakura, will become a fighter, too, just like the boys. She is rather like Judge Judy, isn’t she?”
“Judge Judy?”
I shake my head. “Never mind.”
“Sakura’s my favorite,” Meryl says.
She goes back to her drawing, slightly less sullen. The t
elevision show ends, but another of the same begins. Meryl pays it little mind, engrossed in her art. I can hear Jack and his mother talking in the next room, but the blaring television prevents my knowing what they are saying. I stifle a yawn. My eyes begin to close. If I do not speak, I will begin to fall asleep.
Finally, I say, “I am sorry for looking at your sketch earlier.”
Meryl sketches a few lines, then says, “Whatever.”
“It is just,” I say, “that back in my country, I studied with an Italian master, Signor Carlo Maratti.”
“Woo-woo for you.”
“Oh, I am not bragging. I have no talent whatsoever, I assure you. Signor Maratti despised me. He told my father that teaching me was a waste of his time, and he went back to Italy to paint.”
Meryl laughs. “Pretty embarrassing, getting kicked out of art.”
“Quite. But you have talent, the sort of talent I wished to have.”
Now she is holding the sketch pad so that I might catch a glimpse of it, but I do not attempt to do so. Instead, I point at the television. “I like her hair. Is it common in your country?”
But Meryl moves her sketchbook closer. “I don’t think it’s very good. I can draw people and stuff, but then I have trouble with stupid things like the sky.”
I pull my eyes from the television. “May I see?” When she hands it to me, I take a look at it. As she says, the sky looks false against the realistic person and animals. “Ah, I see what you are talking about, although this is really quite wonderful. Have you studied the concept of negative space?”
“I don’t take art, actually. My dad says it’s a waste of an elective. What’s negative space?”
“Signor Maratti was quite enthusiastic for it—it is the idea that instead of observing the positive space of an object, one should draw the shape of the space around the object—the mermaid, for example, or this seagull.”
“But I tried doing that, drawing the sky first. It still comes out bad.”
I look closer. “That is because you drew the outline first. What you must do is draw up to the object, then draw the object afterward. Can I see your pad?”