“Shit,” I hear Dion say. “I can’t find them.”
“Oh,” I say, and then I look closer at thedoor. “Can we not just open it from the inside?” I reach for the knob of a Yale lock.
“Yeah, that one will open but the other two locks need a key,” Dion says, but his body is lost behind the counter as he continues to look.
I stand in my awkward position for a moment longer before I realise that helping to look would be a lot more useful. I come around to Dion’s side of the counter and see him crouching down, opening drawers and rummaging through each one. “The thing is,” he says, “they should just be right on the counter, or on this ledge right here.” He gestures to a small shelf next to the till’s cash drawer. “That’s where we normally leave the studio keys.”
“Well, they’re definitely not there,” I say, peering into that empty space.
“I know that,” Dion says curtly. “Thank you.”
“Sorry,” I mumble. “Should we look in the other room?”
“No, Mari said they left them here.” Dion sounds like he’s running out of patience and I’m clearly not helping.
“Is there another exit that I can leave by?”
“No,” Dion says so firmly I flinch. “Just give me a minute, I’ll call Mari.”
He walks away before I can say anything else, and he’s in the room behind the counter a second later with his phone at his ear. I watch through the internal glass window as he starts talking on the phone, becoming more and more animated, hands waving around and face scowling in frustration.
I don’t know why I still hope for good news when he gets off the phone and walks back into the room I’m in. He certainly didn’t look like that was what he was hearing. And yet, when he walks back in, I do hope that he has an answerand a way for me to get out of here because his thunderous expression is not one that I want to be near right now.
“Fuck.” He throws his phone onto the counter and it clatters against the glass.
“Problem?” I stupidly, stupidly ask.
He levels me the dirtiest look I think I’ve ever received, and it’s there again, that something I can’t put my finger on, but there’s no time to interrogate that further because he’s opening his mouth and delivering my fate,ourfate. “Mari has the keys. We’re locked in.”
EIGHT
BENJI
THEN
“I don't knowwhat to write,” I say to my mother in French.
She gives me a very familiar ‘et alors?’ look, lips pushed out, shoulders shrugging and eyes wide. “What do you want to say?”
“Well, if I knew that I would be writing it.”
“No,” she says carefully and abandons the vegetables she was chopping in the kitchen to come and sit next to me at the dining table. “I asked you what you want to say, not what you think you should say. These are two very different things.”
I push the card away from me and groan. “This is ridiculous. It's a fucking Valentine's card not a personal statement or a job application.”
Maman gives me a horrified look, which is equally familiar. “You don't thinkun coup de coeuris important? And you call yourself my son?” She places a hand on her chest for extra impact.
“Maman, she doesn't even know I like her. I suspect if she knew it was me who sent her a card, she'd rip it to shreds.”
“Ahh, unrequited love. This is the most powerful kind.” She reaches for the card I bought in Paperchase after school and inspects it with a vague air of disapproval. I knew I should have got the slightly more expensive one.
“It's not love!” I snatch the card back. “I just...fancy her.” I switch to English because that verb works better here.
Maman studies me for a moment then interlocks her fingers.
“Bon. I'll repeat my earlier question. What do you want to say to her?” She steers the conversation back to French.
I sigh. “I want to tell her that I think she's the coolest person I've ever met. I always want to be near her to hear what music she has playing in her headphones because it's always different, not like what everyone else is listening to. I always want to be close enough to hear her conversations because she's so boldly direct and beautifully succinct. She doesn't take shit from anyone and I love that. I want to tell her how I always try to sit near her in French so we can get partnered together and when we are, I feel torn between staring in her eyes and wanting to memorise every single thing she says. I want to tell her how striking her art is, that I sneak into the art room whenever I can just to see if any of her works in progress are on display. And I want to tell her that she smells so good. Like the first batch of fresh peaches in summer, sitting in a bowl in the sun with the bright blue sky above them and dry olive groves behind them. I want to tell her that my heartbeat changes when I’m near her. It gets faster and thumps harder and I feel…more alive.”
