Chapter 3 Official Portrait #2
I grip the strap of my bag. “I have substantive, serious-minded questions about your time in Seong, Marc. I really do.”
“But?” he laughs, leading me down the promenade.
I fist my hand under my chin as though I’m holding a microphone.
“Are you dating Lee Jang Mi of BLUSH?” I don’t give him a chance to answer before I fire off a few more questions, mimicking the insane coverage of a man whose only mission in Seong was humanitarian.
“Are you prepared to apologize to her fans? What is her skincare routine? When can we expect a fourth studio album? Can you confirm or deny that the lyrics of Third-Generation Rich Man are about you?”
I tilt my hand under his chin and he captures my fist in a light grip. Ducking his head, he brings it closer to his lips. “Those lyrics would be?”
Marc’s warm breath on my skin sends a wave of heat through my veins. “He looks like a billion/It’s not his billions/No ATM at the minute/All I want is to get it, get it, get it.” I clear my throat. “Those lyrics.”
His eyes dance. “She uses Blossom & Branch skincare.” He releases me. “I brought some for you…for all of you.”
Oh. I halt for a beat, letting the bomb spiral through my belly that Marc and Jang Mi aren’t just a fevered invention of the Seongan press. They’re close enough that he knows about her morning makeup routine. They’re really— Oh.
I inhale sharply. This was always going to happen, and it’s going to make everything easier. In desperation, I hail some friends and drag us into a loud, laughing group that runs from the merry-go-round to the Stop and Drop. The din of laughter and screaming almost drowns out my thoughts.
At the top of an enormous pink slide, Marc, arranged on a rectangle of burlap, hooks an arm around my waist and hauls me in front of him. “Ready?” he asks, mouth by my ear, holding me close. When we cross the finish line, I leap up like I’ve had a scalding.
“Gravitron?” somebody suggests, and the group goes off. When Marc moves to follow, I grab his arm.
“Are you insane?” I ask.
“What?”
“Allow me to take you through the dark forest of memory—”
“Stop,” he smiles.
“—when riders of the Gravitron—a harmless ride, beloved by all—were terrorized by one Marc van Heyden.”
“I had an upset tummy.”
A masterpiece of understatement. “The ride was out of commission for the rest of the night and Amma had to settle the cleaning bill for an entire row of girls on the other side of the wheel. I still don’t understand the physics of that.”
“One time. I can’t even believe you remember.”
I shake my head. “Remember? I’m haunted. I used to think you were kind of cute, but that was the night that killed my crush forever.”
Yes. He knows about the crush, and he knows it’s something to laugh about. I admitted to a tiny, toss-away, years-old infatuation for the same reasons a magician uses a leggy assistant and a smoke-machine. It’s a misdirection so that Marc won’t see all the years I’ve spent wishing he was mine.
We pass a shooting gallery where some of Tom’s American friends are having a quick-draw competition. It’s not too late to find my Tucker or Brody.
Marc catches me looking at them. “The sights are faulty,” he tells me. “You won’t hit what you’re aiming at. Where are we going next?”
“No spinny rides.”
He grins. “You’d think I’d outgrow it.”
My lips tighten. “There are some things you don’t outgrow.”
We continue up the midway, parting around families, casually keeping eye contact as we walk in tandem on either side of the crowd.
A group of teenagers knocks into me, and Marc shouts something I can’t hear over the sound of a calliope.
I shake my head and he tries again, this time with gestures.
Finally, he cleaves his way through the stream and herds me through a low doorway, pulling a curtain closed behind him until we’re squeezed in a photobooth so tightly that there’s nowhere to look but right at his collarbone.
“Let the crowd pass,” he says, his throat working in a swallow. “We can get a picture.”
I hold my phone up. “There are hundreds of pictures of us.”
“So we’ll give one to Alix,” he says, tapping a credit card to the reader. The screen powers up, framing us inside a tiny digital box. “Smile.”
I push the curly hair out of my face and look at the unblinking lens as a countdown beeps. Click.
The bench is narrow and Marc throws an arm around me. “This isn’t a royal portrait,” he chides, brushing his fingers against my waist. Even the suggestion of being tickled has me squirming. Click.
“You’re wasting the film,” I say, smacking his hand. He drags me closer and my blood thickens. Click.
“Hand heart,” he says, lifting his hand to form half the heart—fingers curled over, thumb forming the point. I lift my hand and it’s comical how small my side is. Click.
“We’ll give her that one,” I say, scrambling to my feet. I trip past him, but we tangle and he catches me on the narrow bench, bracing his hands on my waist. Click.
“I thought it was over.”
“Looks like we got one more shot,” he answers. His hands haven’t moved.
The silence stretches and he takes a breath. Before he can speak, he’s pushed from behind and I’m squashed into the corner, saved from a parade of a couple of Saint Sissela girls by his forearm braced against the wall.
“...an actual photo. So fun,” one says, peering over Marc’s shoulder, pushing him against me. “Ella! You escaped!”
Yasmin is not the brightest bulb, but she also thinks the fact that I have to show up to community centers on snowy Tuesday mornings in heels and stockings is hilarious. I love her.
Marc dips his head, breath stirring the hair near my ear. “Isn’t that the one you put in a headlock?”
She called Freja The Hunchback of the House of Wolffe in the first week of school. My cheek brushes his and I whisper, “Just once. She made a handsome apology.”
“Ella?” Dahlia, a bubbly brunette whose romantic decisions might be a form of self harm, squishes into the booth. The last boyfriend was an aide to the prime minister who treated her like the hired help.
I make a muffled answer and feel Marc’s chest shaking with laughter as the camera clicks through a series of photos. When we finally emerge from the booth, Dahlia turns to Marc, her eyes wide and her lashes fluttering. “Welcome home, Neerheid van Heyden. Are you back for good?”
He reaches into the photo depository to retrieve our strip.
“That’s the idea,” he says, ripping off the photo with my uptight expression.
He hands it to Dahlia. “Compliments of the Crown.” He puts the remaining photos in his wallet, nods his farewell to the others, and takes my hand, guiding me to a picnic area to catch my breath.
Marc doesn’t have to be told that I don’t love crowds or tight spaces.
“Stroopwafel?” he asks.
When I nod, he leaves me on a bench under a tree that glows with fairy lights and shivers with soft pink blossoms. Soon he returns with a flat, syrup-filled waffle as big as my head, and he devours the piece I tear off for him in one bite.
The sound of Alix’s unmistakable laugh carries over the distant music. “I like him. Do you?” I ask. “Tom.”
The edges of his mouth pull in thought. “Alix doesn’t always think when she’s throwing herself into one of her passions.”
Marc isn’t wrong. Being a muse isn’t a full-time gig.
My friend has dabbled in being a Pixy influencer and a pop singer, hiked one of the lesser Alps for charity, and now works as a social media manager for the van Heyden estate.
She ran Lindenholm when her family was gone.
By some miracle, the place didn’t burn to the ground.
“Are you worried she doesn’t really love him?”
“I’m worried she’s not using her head.”
I let the syrup dissolve on my tongue and offer Marc another portion. “Who thinks when they fall in love? No, don’t answer that. I can’t imagine you or Noah being carried away by something soft and feral.”
He swallows, the muscles of his throat working, and my pulse lifts. I shift my gaze to examine the stroopwafel, torn in the shape of a ragged heart.
“Well,” he whispers, giving my hair a brotherly tug. “You’d better not be carried away. I won’t have you running off and getting engaged, too.”