El and I endure the Convocation for over an hour before we are sent to different orientation groups.
“Here,” says El and holds her phone against mine. “My contact. Please save me from this later.”
“Deffo,” I say and laugh. “You better bring some booze.”
“Bet,” she says.
“Who’s that guy?”I ask El, six hours later, when we meet to escape the campus activities, and she comes with a very efficient-looking man in functional wear and a rather tight t-shirt, following her.
“Bodyguard,” she says casually. “He’ll do the driving and will most certainly wait outside.”
“I thought your dad said he wanted you to have a …what was it? A ‘necessary character-building experience’, yes?”
“Yes, but hypocrisy is his favorite mood,” she says dryly. “Anyway, let’s get wasted,” she says cheerfully and pulls out a black Amex to give it to the bodyguard.
“Get us some Dom Pérignon, the P2, not that shit you bought last time. Two at least. And some snacks,” she says to the bodyguard, who doesn’t show a single emotion.
“You want anything specific?” she asks.
“Nah,” I say. I have no clue what I’d want and what she understands by “snacks”—probably not what I mean. For the time being, I try to blend in.
We come to a halt in front of my address, one and a half hours later, in a black Range Rover. The bodyguard who hasn’t said a word carries three bags of stuff, following us all the way to the elevator and up to my studio.
A slightly awkward feeling crawls up on me.
First of all, it is the first time I have someone over. In forever. In this new life, as me. Well, the kind of me, whoever that is. I’m new in town, new to being me without my role. Secondly, I don’t know what she expects from me and my studio.
I hesitate with my key in the door.
“What?” she asks. She registered it immediately, which tells me she is not as dumb as her father portrays her.
“I am not used to having a man hovering behind me,” I lie to navigate the conversation elsewhere.
“Shush,” she says to the bodyguard and takes the bags from his hand. “You can wait in the car.”
He nods and leaves.
“Do you not like men?” she asks as I open the door.
“Hate ‘em,” I say. “They’re the reason for all the evil in my life and this world.”
“You tell me,” she says, puts the bags on my wooden couch desk, pulls out a bottle of champagne, and walks over to the big open kitchen and opens the cupboards. “Do you have glasses?”
I am weirdly mesmerized by her, because I would have never dared to walk into someone else’s apartment as I own it.
“Second to the right,” I say. I bought the studio fully furnished; I wouldn’t even know what I’d like to have in here or how to decorate it.
She opens the bottle with a loud pop that resounds from the high ceiling and brick walls like a cannon blast.
“Here,” she says and hands me a glass. “Cheers to not being a minion.”
I laugh.
“Cheers,” I say, and taste the champagne. It’s the first time I’m drinking champagne, and it goes down like silk.
There is a moment of awkward silence, where I sip some of the champagne that prickles silently against the glass. Warmth spreads through me. I haven’t had any alcohol in my life before. My father told me to always keep a clear head so as not to get in trouble with my last job; we couldn’t risk my getting drunk blowing up the entire thing.
“What’s the matter with this apartment?” she asks as she glances around.
