Isla And The Happily Ever After Part 21

Hey, Isla. My heart splits in two at the sound of his tired voice, which he's attempting to raise above a jumbled commotion of shouting and ringing and clanging. It's, uh, Thursday. I guess it's already night in Paris? I'm calling from a volunteer's desk at election headquarters. This is the first time that I've been left alone near a phone. It's pretty bad here, but... I don't know. None of it even matters. I miss you. I'll try again as soon as I can. A pause. I hope you're all right. Okay, bye. I love you.

I call back. After two rings, a woman with a nasal timbre answers. I hang up.

I listen to the voicemail again. And again. And again and again and again, and I don't know how many times I've listened to it before I realize that Kurt is gone.

A locksmith fixes my door. I never leave my phone.

I turn up the ringer as high as it goes before I shower, and then I keep the volume there, even in cla.s.s. My paranoia grows. I can't stop checking it checking for messages, checking to make sure it's charged, checking to make sure that I haven't accidentally muted it. I want to speak with him so badly I might combust.

On Sat.u.r.day before dawn, another 212 startles me awake. "Josh?"

"OhthankG.o.d," he whispers, exhausted and relieved. "I'm sorry it's so early, but I couldn't sleep. I'm calling you from the kitchen. If my parents catch me, I'm dead. But I had to hear your voice."

I grasp my phone harder. "I miss you so much."

"How is it possible that it hasn't even been a week?"

"It feels like a year."

"How are you? What happened with the head? Were you suspended?"

"No. She gave me detention, because it's my first offence. But it's for the entire month."

His voice grows heavier. "I'm sorry."

"The suckiest part? The moment that I have detention, you don't."

It gets a single glum laugh. "I'd take detention over this."

"I know." I soften. "How is it? How are your parents?"

"p.i.s.sed off. Busy. They're running me around everywhere with them, but they can hardly even look at me."

"They'll come around."

"Maybe."

One question is weighing on me, heavier than any other. I clutch my necklace for support. "Hey..."

"Yeah?"

"Never mind."

"Isla. Say it."

"I was just...did your parents know about me? I know you guys didn't talk often, but I was wondering if you ever mentioned me. Before all of this." My voice cracks. "I'd hate it if that was your mom's first impression of me."

His long pause gives me the answer before he does. "I was gonna tell them before Thanksgiving," he finally says. "I didn't want them asking about you."

I cry in silence. "Were you worried that they'd think I'm not good enough for you?"

"No. No. I just wanted to keep you for myself. We were in that perfect bubble, you know? Of course they'll like you."

"I highly doubt that."

"They will. They know this is my fault. And when the election is over, I'll tell them all about you. How smart you are, and how kind, and-"

"How ambitious? How I have no plans for my future?"

"Isla."

"Sorry."

"No, I'm sorry. I should've told them." There's another pause. "Did your parents know about me?"

"Of course."

Josh exhales.

"They were looking forward to meeting you."

"And now they aren't." He gives a sad little snort. "You worry about my parents, but I'm the one who was expelled." Suddenly, his voice grows lower. "Someone's moving around. I gotta go I love you bye."

I don't even get to say "I love you" back.

On Monday after detention, I find him in the background of some photographs taken over the weekend at a Brooklyn YMCA, a last-chance campaigning effort. He's tall and handsome and smiling. He looks almost like my boyfriend. I can tell that his smile no doubt convincing to others is forced. There are no dimples.

"I didn't wake you up this time, did I?" he asks. The call arrives in the dead of night. There's a racket of people in the background, a general buzz of stress and excitement. Headquarters again. The election is only hours away.

"No." I hug my pillow, wis.h.i.+ng it were him. "Getting sleepy, but I'm still reading."

"That's my girl. What's the subject tonight?"

"Orchid hunting. Did you know it was a surprisingly dangerous occupation?"

"Maybe that's your future career." A real smile creeps into his voice. "Orchid hunter. And I'll join you on the expeditions. We can wear those khaki hats with mosquito nets."

"How is it over there?" I ask.

"I'd rather be hunting orchids."

"I hope your dad wins."

"Me, too. Otherwise he'll be intolerable for at least six months." The sort-of joke falls flat, and he sighs. "Speaking of. Guess who's sending a camera crew to my polling station? Guess who'll be on the morning news?"

"Guess who'll be glued to CNN's live stream, hoping to catch a glimpse?"

"Guess who'll be in cla.s.s when it happens?"

"Oh." My heart sinks. "Right."

"Don't worry, it'll be uploaded to my dad's website. Aaaaaaand my mom's back."

"Iloveyou!" I say.

"I love you, too." Josh laughs in surprise. "Thanks for the enthusiasm."

"I didn't get to say it last time."

"Ah, well. From now on" and I hear his smile grow into a dimple-bearing grin "let's start with it."

Chapter twenty-one.

When school ends, I duck into a bathroom stall. I have ten minutes before I need to be in detention. I yank out my laptop from my bag. The race is still way too early for any of the poll numbers to be in, but I quickly scroll down the senator's website. There. The video.

Josh enters the polling station with his parents. He's cleaned up, as in...he looks clean-cut. He's wearing a suit that fits so well it must have been tailored just for him. He smiles and waves at the cameras. His parents exit their booths. "Who did you vote for?" somebody shouts, and Josh's dad says, "Was I supposed to vote in there? I thought I was placing a to-go order for breakfast!" Hardy-har.

It cuts back to Josh. He enters a booth while his parents look on proudly. A female reporter with large teeth shoves a microphone at Josh upon his exit. "How does it feel to vote for your father for the first time?"

"Surreal." Josh flashes the camera a startling amount of charm. "It feels great."

He's not lying. And even though I understand that this is a genuinely remarkable moment in his life, it's...it's as if I were looking at a stranger. I rewatch the segment and pause it as he answers the reporter's question. I touch his image onscreen.

If we hadn't gone to Barcelona, he'd be back in Paris in twenty-four hours.

I push the thought down and away. Because if we hadn't gone to Barcelona, we also wouldn't have Parc Gell. Or a moonlit hotel room.

When detention ends, I run straight to my bedroom. I scour the internet, but the earliest poll numbers all read the same. The race is neck and neck.

Kurt shows up, and to my surprise he shuts the door behind him. "Buf bourguignon suivi d'un clafoutis aux poires. For you." He sets down a plastic cafeteria tray onto my desk. "I didn't know what to do, so I took the whole thing."

His embarra.s.sment is touching, somehow. The still-warm dinner and pear dessert both smell intoxicating. "Thank you."

He pushes back his hoodie. "Nate said I could wait up with you so long as no one else ever finds out, under penalty of beheading. But I don't think he'd actually behead us."

My breath is bottling up inside my chest.

"I'm sorry I couldn't lie for you," he says. "And I'm sorry that Josh is gone."

I tackle him with a hug. It feels like the old days, even though we spend the night combing through the news instead of doing homework. Kurt crashes after midnight, but the race is too close for me to sleep. It's still early in the States. A live feed plays softly, volume turned down. Predicted winners from all across America are announced one after another. At two in the morning, I'm given a six seconds of joy when it shows a clip from the Wa.s.serstein headquarters.

Josh is standing beside his mother and father and a few hundred red, white and blue balloons. The camera moves, and the balloons obscure his face. The feed switches to the gubernatorial race in Florida. An hour later, my eyes are barely open when I hear the newsman with the bad toupee say, "And in the closest race of the night, New York senator Joseph Wa.s.serstein is still fighting to hold on to his seat."

I lean in towards the screen. As they watch the tallies, Mrs. Wa.s.serstein still looks fresh and cheerful ever the supportive wife although I a.s.sume a make-up artist has given her a touch-up. The senator seems a bit haggard, but he's keeping a brave face.

Josh looks exhausted and annoyed. I hope his parents don't see this footage later.

Still...this is my Josh. Not the stranger from before. A tense-looking man, perhaps the campaign manager, whispers something into his ear, and Josh stands up straighter. The man must have told him that he's on TV. The camera cuts away.

The news drones on. My burst of adrenalin fades.

I wake up to my morning alarm. Kurt is gone, and the covers have been neatly tucked around me. There's a one-word note beside my pillow: VICTORY.

I have severely underestimated Josh's parents. In the wake of the senator's success, I imagined at the very least that they'd allow their son a celebratory phone call. No such luck. I wish I could tell Josh how happy I am for his family. I wish I could tell Josh anything. I've never before felt this helpless or cut off.

Two days later, the biggest morning news programme in New York has an exclusive with Senator Wa.s.serstein. I find the link on his website, of course. The interview is standard political fluff, but the background. Well. It's captivating.

It's Josh's house.

The camera follows his dad from the dining room into the living room. Everything is impeccably decorated, though perhaps too orderly. Delicate china plates hang in patterns on the walls. Extravagant vases are stuffed with seasonal gra.s.ses and pheasant feathers. It's hard to imagine anyone living here. Mrs. Wa.s.serstein joins him on the sofa beneath a prominently displayed, seemingly out-of-place oil painting of the Saint-Michel metro station an Art Nouveau beauty that's heaped in chained bicycles and dull graffiti. A teenaged boy languishes against one of the bike racks. It's St. Clair. Josh painted this portrait of his friend last year. I saw it drying inside our school's studio.

The interviewer, a beaky woman with s.h.i.+ny pale lips, knowingly asks about it, and Josh's parents gush about their son's promising future. It's a jarring response. I've always a.s.sumed that the rift between Josh and his parents was caused by his desire to pursue a career in the arts, but their praise and support seems genuine.

"He gets it from his mother," the senator says, beaming at his wife.

"His appreciation for art, yes," she says. "But the talent is all his own."

The interview flashes back to the polling station footage Josh, so handsome, so charming and when it returns, he's joined them. My heart picks up speed. It's that odd, clean-cut look again. An inexplicable pressure mounts inside of me.

The interviewer smiles, nosy and ominous. "We've heard that after that clip aired, young ladies flooded your father's office with inquiries about you. What do you think will happen now that they know not only are you easy on the eyes, but you're also an artistic genius?"

What?

Josh laughs politely. "I'm not sure."

"Tell us." She leans towards him. "New York is dying to know. Do you have a girlfriend?"

He pauses before giving another modest laugh. "Uh, no. Not at the moment."

My ears ring. I rewind, heart reeling.

Uh, no. Not at the moment.

A dark churning rumbles in my gut. I blink. And then again. Pinp.r.i.c.k stars obliterate my vision as they replay a clip from election night. It's the one where Josh looks miserable, but now the interviewer says he looks nervous because he cares so much about his dad, and how it'll be a lucky lady who lands such a compa.s.sionate young bachelor. "You won't be single for long," she teases, and his parents chuckle.

Rewind. Uh, no. Not at the moment.

You won't be single for long.

Chuckle chuckle.