3. Day Three
Day Three
W hen the promised reminder of the past turned out to be a box full of cheap plastic bugs I nearly vibrated out of my skin.
I lied, ok? I could admit to myself: I needed to know. There was a good chance I was going to die if I couldn’t learn what a fricking toy beetle, or a spider, or an ant, or all the other creepy-crawlies said about the relationship between those two.
And it did mean something because Leo’s mouth fell open in surprise. He immediately opened the cheap plastic container and took a very ugly, badly painted spider out and cooed at it.
“Huh,” he said, looking a mix of intrigued and pensive.
“That’s a bit different from the previous gifts…” I prompted carefully.
“It is, isn’t it? I’m pretty sure this box of twenty critters cost about ten dollars. I would expect this to be some one-of-a-kind special order plushie, made by a top designer with the fur of an endangered animal or something… but no, he bought something cheap and actually fun.”
I looked at the box queasily. We apparently had different opinions what constituted fun.
“Ah, are you scared of spiders?” Leo asked, seeing how stiffly I held myself.
“I have deep respect for them and therefore keep my distance,” I said firmly.
“I will put them away then,” he nodded and left me by the door.
I shifted from foot to foot, feeling bad for stopping his appreciation of the gift. Would Peter be angry that I ruined things when it seemed like his gift was getting a positive reaction?
When Leo returned with the customary note, I opened my mouth to apologize, but he spoke before I could do that.
“What would you do if you saw a spider crawling on someone’s arm?” he asked me.
“I would inform the person in question about their passenger and hope they wouldn’t want to involve me in taking it off,” I shrugged.
“Taking it off? Not killing it?”
“No? I really do have respect for spiders and such. Dudes do good work. Not their fault they give me the heebie-jeebies.”
Leo sighed.
“Peter saw one crawling on my arm when we were at a party and he reached for it… and I assumed he wanted to kill it. I may have said a few unkind things to him because I let that spider crawl on my arm from the balcony pillar on purpose and I was just playing with it…”
“You assumed?” I caught the keyword in all of that.
“I don’t know now! Would a stuck-up brute send me the very spider he wanted to kill in a cute, cheap plastic form? Maybe! But maybe not. It was our first meeting, and it kinda left a bad impression on me and it snowballed from there. What… what if that impression was wrong?” Leo wrung his hands.
“Well, it’s good then that you can get to know him a bit better through the gifts and the notes, hmm?” I gave him an encouraging smile.
“Thank you, Raymond.” Leo took a deep breath and sent me away with the note.
It was time to learn the other side of the story.
“Bugs, sir?”
“He liked them, right?” Peter stared at me so intensely he resembled a serial killer. I refused to let the shiver that wasn’t entirely from fear to run down my spine.
“I would say so. Though he was confused about some… connotations.”
Peter lifted his hand, no doubt to run it through his hair in a gesture of frustration, but stopped himself at the last moment, keeping his appearance immaculate. This was a man who stayed in a suit even to receive a lowly courier like me. He wore his fastidiousness like armor.
“I first spotted him at one of the fancy dinners we both attended. Instead of making small and big talk like the rest of us, he escaped into the garden and there I saw him, admiring a ladybug that alit on his finger,” Peter sighed dreamily. “He looked so radiant, so happy among all those people who wore false smiles. I wanted him to smile at me like that.”
“So, you approached him at that party?” I asked.
“No, I waited until the next one. And when I saw him playing with a spider on his hand on a balcony I thought it would be a great conversation starter…”
“But he freaked out.”
“Indeed. And I was, ah, too flabbergasted to correct his assumptions. I choose to leave to not escalate the situation.”
“But that wasn’t the only time you saw him. Right? Uh, sir?”
“You can drop the formalities,” Peter waved his hand. “Before I’m done with the gifts, I would wager you will know more about me than most of my family, whether I want it or not.”
“It looks like it. Call me Raymond then. Do you want me to read the note now?”
“It’s a tradition at this point,” Peter said solemnly.
“The web entangled
Among the branches of us
Shines like a rainbow.”
Peter inhaled sharply, a hint of an emotion I couldn’t parse showing on his face.
“Maybe I do have a chance…” he said quietly.
My heart melted a little. Here I thought the whole courting with gifts thing was a bit like a predator stalking its prey, a rich man using his money and privilege to pursue a pretty thing that caught his fancy, but the man before me resembled more of a devout believer wanting to worship at Leo’s feet than a wolf.
Was the face he showed publicly so different from what I could see in private? I could understand the resting bitch face and frigid demeanor, which I was increasingly convinced were a way to hide anxiety, didn’t score him points on the scale of approachability but I, personally, was starting to like this man.