Chapter 4 #2
“I think it really is just a dot,” Sadie says somberly.
“Now, ladies and gentlemen,” the host calls out, “as you can see, the Gong is here behind me. Bidding for this work begins at six hundred thousand dollars—”
Before he’s finished his sentence, the first hand goes up.
“Eight hundred thousand dollars,” the host says, eyes lighting up as he scans the room. “Straight in at eight hundred—Nine hundred thousand dollars!”
Another hand goes up. Then another. Then another, almost faster than the host can keep up with.
“One million,” the host cries. “One million, going—Oh, one point two million dollars!”
Julius wonders if he accidentally signed up for the world’s most outrageous social experiment.
There’s no way any of this is real. As the bidding heats up in the background—out of self-protection, his brain starts tuning it out after he hears the number two million—Sadie settles her head on the nook of his shoulder.
He inhales the familiar scent of her shampoo, the strawberry one she lugged all the way from Australia with her because she has an inherent distrust of new brands.
“As absolutely bizarre as all this is,” Sadie murmurs, “I think it’s really nice you’re making an effort.”
Instinctively, Julius tenses at the words, guilt and embarrassment flushing through him as if he’s a student who’s been caught stealing cake from the staff room. “What do you mean by that?”
“The fact that you keep supporting your brother,” Sadie goes on in a low, calm voice.
“Like, you know, you could’ve easily made an excuse to skip today’s auction altogether.
But you showed up for your brother. Just like you did for his book launch, and for his debating tournaments, and for his TED Talk.
While James can be … highly questionable, I think it means more to him than you realize. ”
The idea has never even occurred to Julius. That anything he does could mean much to his brother, who already has everything, all the approval and praise and awards. “I doubt it. It’s nothing more than an opportunity for him to show off,” Julius mutters.
“Even if that were true, that would only go to show the kind of person he is. But you—you’re the kind of person who does stuff like this. You try; you always do.”
And the way she says it, trying doesn’t seem so mortifying. Not something you do as a last resort when you aren’t good enough to rely on natural talent alone. But trying in itself can be good. She makes him want to keep trying. Try harder, be better.
When the auction finally wraps up, Julius finds his way to his brother with Sadie right beside him. This isn’t very hard to do, when James Gong is standing at the center of the room, a champagne glass held high in his hand, surrounded on all sides by his new admirers.
“Ju-zi!” James waves him closer and pats him so hard on the back Julius can feel his bones vibrating.
“My baby brother,” he introduces him to everyone at large, earning him a few awws that make Julius feel about fifteen years younger than he really is.
Then his brother grins at Julius and leads them to a quieter corner. “That was a lot of fun, wasn’t it?”
“That was … a lot” is the extent to which Julius can agree.
James glances down at Julius’s hand, which is wrapped around Sadie’s. “And look, your girlfriend’s here! Hello, hello. I must say, it’s just so nice that the two of you are still together,” he tells Sadie.
Sadie blinks, like he’s remarked on something as obvious as the sun being in the sky. “Of course we’re still together.”
“Oh, well, I only mean that my brother can be a lot to put up with, and I can’t even imagine how devastated he would be if you were ever to leave him. He didn’t see you for, what, only a few days over the holidays, and he was distraught—”
“I was not distraught,” Julius says in a hurry.
A smile twitches on Sadie’s lips. “Is that so?” she asks James.
“He kept looking at the photos he’d taken of you at the beach and reading over your texts,” James confirms. “The few times I saw him smiling were when he was calling you or talking about you. It’s always Sadie this, Sadie that, Sadie would love this restaurant, Sadie’s so smart, Sadie said she has a sore throat so I should get some medicine delivered, Sadie’s read that book too, Sadie’s perfect—”
Julius clears his throat with emphasis. “Sadie, didn’t you say you really needed to find the restroom?”
“I can wait just a bit longer,” Sadie says innocently.
He shoots her a look, a silent plea, and Sadie lets him panic for a few more seconds before she acquiesces.
“Okay, no, I do need to find the restroom. Let me go ask someone,” she says.
Everything else goes as planned. When his phone rings a minute later, Julius manages to pull off his most I’m sorry but this is urgent act, and slips out through the door while his brother goes up to take his three million dollars, which was apparently the final bid for the dot.
And the strangest thing is that he should be more bothered by this.
He should be dwelling on the unbelievable fact that his brother flicked his wrist in a restaurant one random day and produced something that is now worth more than the average person could make across three lifetimes.
But when he steps out into the cool evening air, the purplish clouds blending into the horizon, lights streaming from the cars in the parking lot, and sees Sadie waiting right there for him, he feels a curious lightness in his chest. Who cares, really, if his brother is leaving this place with another potential career path and three million dollars to stuff into his already overflowing bank account?
He’s leaving with Sadie Wen: his co-conspirator, his co-captain, his rival, his life’s great defining question and answer.