“Ah, that’s right,” the judge says to Josh. “I forgot you lived overseas. England?”
“France. Though I’m finishing my schooling here in America.” Josh’s reply is smooth. Anticipated. His parents smile with ease, and it occurs to me that everyone playing this game is a pro. Everyone but me.
“Isla is the top student in her class,” the senator says.
My face pinkens as a surreal conversation occurs in which I am the subject, and Josh’s parents are bragging about my accomplishments. It’s uncomfortable to hear them praise me when they can’t possibly mean what they’re saying. There’s no reason for them to like me. I’m a nobody. A nobody who took their son to Spain for sex and then got him expelled from high school. This situation is so unexpected that I can’t even answer their questions, and Josh is forced to pick up my end of the dialogue. Before I know it, the whole thing is over, and Josh is pulling me away.
“We’re off to find something to eat,” he tells his parents. “It was good seeing you again,” he tells the judge, shaking his outstretched hand while steering me in the opposite direction.
“Nice to meet you,” I call out. Which is the only thing I’ve said to any of them this entire time. Josh’s parents probably think that he’s been lying about my intelligence, too.
“That went well,” Josh says.
“Did it?”
He glances at me. “We’ll talk to them again later – just the four of us – after they’ve had a few more glasses of wine.”
That’s not an answer.
Josh swiftly pushes us through a cluster of uptight partygoers. He heads straight towards the canapés, grabs an uncharacteristically small sampling, and parades us past his parents again. He lifts his plate to them in a toast. His mother raises her glass in return. And then he’s ducking and weaving us into the thickest crush in the room. His plate vanishes somewhere in the mix.
“Excuse me, pardon me,” he says.
I’m scrambling to keep up. “These heels. They weren’t built for this.”
Josh throws me a mischievous smile, and I recognize a plan behind it. He continues threading us through a neighbouring gallery – past stained-glass windows and a Pietà, glazed jugs and earthenware – until we come to an abrupt halt before a closed door.
A closed door and a museum guard.
But the middle-aged guard in the navy suit loses all rigidity the moment he recognizes Josh. He breaks into an unexpected grin. Josh jerks up his chin in the universal guy-nod. The guard returns the nod, whisks open the door, and lets us pass.
The door shuts behind us.
The sound of the party instantly dims. We’re in a very large, very dark, and very empty room. It’s a vast indoor sculpture garden. We’re in the American wing, but it feels as if we’re back in Paris thanks to a gorgeous pair of flickering turn-of-the-century electric street lamps. I wonder if the guard left them on for us.
“What,” I whisper, “was that?”
“We,” Josh says at normal volume, “are taking a break from the soirée.”
My heartbeat accelerates. “We are?”
He takes my hand – the way he did at school, comfortable and relaxed and himself – and strolls me past the street lamps.
My heels click and echo. “Who was that guard? How do you know him?”
“Chuck Nadelhorn. We’ve taken a lot of art classes together over the years.” He sees my furrowed brow and grins. “Don’t be ageist.”
I laugh, caught.
“I was the odd one out. I was the youngest in each class, by far. Chuck was one of the few people who treated me with respect.”
“Then I like him even more than I already did.”
Josh plants a singular kiss on my lips. “This way.”
He moves forward, and I follow. “I assume you set this up – whatever it is – with Chuck in advance?”
“There were a few people involved. I’ve had some time to prepare,” he says slyly. “But we’d better hurry, we only have twenty minutes. Nineteen now.”
“As long as I’m not about to be arrested for trespassing. Or for stealing a nondescript, though no doubt priceless, artefact.”
“Only if we’re caught.”
I stop.
He tugs me forward by our clasped hands. “Come on, come on!”
We race through the room into a corridor gift shop, and we’re no longer in Paris, we’re in Barcelona – two crazy kids running away to discover our own private world. Exploring. Taking risks. A sharp right, and we enter an even darker and even more vast room, but this one couldn’t be mistaken for anything else. Anyone who has visited this museum would know it.
“The Temple of Dendur.” Josh says it with a finality that tells me we’ve reached our destination – the ancient Egyptian sandstone temple.
I’m intrigued. But baffled. “Any particular reason?”
Josh shrugs in a way that’s almost bashful. “I like the temple’s reflecting pool. I kind of just wanted to sit beside it and make out with you.”
It’s actually the best answer he could have given me.
This time he leads me quietly, delicately, to the ledge beside the pool. The reflecting pool is beautiful in its dignified silence. An entire wall of this room is a window, and the lights of the city twinkle inside the still water. We sit down. The air is cold, the granite ledge even colder. He takes off his tuxedo jacket and swings it up and around my shoulders. And then he uses his own lapels to pull me into him. His mouth is warm. We slip into each other as if no time had passed between now and Spain. If there wasn’t a thousand museum cameras on us, we’d lie down and make love. But touching him is enough. Smelling him is enough. Tasting him is enough.
Being here with him is enough.
And then…we’re lying down anyway. His body is on top of mine. We press against each other, our hands and mouths travelling everywhere. We do everything except the one thing we can’t do right now. After what feels simultaneously like no time at all and eternity, Josh unwraps his limbs from mine, and we readjust our clothing.
“Before we go.” He picks up his jacket from the floor and reaches into an inside pocket. He removes a small tube. I can’t believe I didn’t feel it earlier. “Joyeux Noël.”
My heart is in my throat.
It has to be a drawing. I pop open the cap, and sure enough, there’s a thick scroll inside. I slide out the paper. I unroll it slowly, because I know that, whatever it is, it’s more valuable than anything inside this museum.
It’s a tiny island. But instead of the stereotypical single palm, he’s drawn a prickly Joshua tree in its centre. Underneath it are two entwined figures. It’s impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins. They’ve become a single naked body. The entire illustration is done in rich black ink…with the exception of the girl’s bold red hair.
He’s nervous. “Do you like it?”
“Let’s move to this island tonight. Right this second.” I can’t hide the genuine longing from my voice. Nor the fear and dread of our upcoming re-separation.
Josh tucks a loose strand of my hair back into place. “We’ll move there next autumn, maybe even this summer. And then we’ll never be apart ever again.”
Chapter twenty-six
Back at Chuck’s door, Josh returns the tube to his jacket pocket. My fancy jewelled clutch is too fancy to be of any actual use. Josh knocks – a normal knock, not his special knock – and the door opens. Chuck nods his approval. “With thirty seconds to spare.”
“Anything you need, you let me know,” Josh says as we steal back inside.
Chuck’s smile widens into a grin. “Oh, I’ll let you know.”
“Thank you so much,” I say.
Chuck gestures towards the right strap of my dress, which has loosened and keeps falling off my shoulder. I shove it back up. My boyfriend’s ensuing blush matches my own. Chuck laughs. “You kids have a good night now, you hear?”
As soon as we’re out of earshot, Josh says, “Nothing like an adult to remind you that you aren’t one.”
I laugh, but as we place our drink order at the bar, our matching ginger ales make the sort-of joke feel all too real. It’s always uncomfortable to come home from school only to be faced with even fewer freedoms. The last time we were at a party, we drank champagne. We stayed out as late as we wanted. And zero family members were involved. “Should we find your parents again?” Please say no.