The planning room
Chapter 13
SOPHIA
The planning room is on the second floor of the west wing one of those rooms that Weststarr has in unreasonable abundance, the kind that exists not because anyone has planned a specific use for it but because the building has been designed by someone who believed that space was its own argument for
existing.
Dark wood paneling. A fireplace that actually works, which I had not expected and have then decided is either the most wonderful or the most absurd thing about this school, depending entirely on my mood.
Two leather sofas facing each other across a low table. A window that looks out over the back courtyard where, approximately two hours ago, a certain person upended my bag, broke my pen, and walked away as though none of it had been particularly remarkable.
Maria is spread across one end of the table, surrounded by what appears to be the physical evidence of an organizational system that has recently been through some kind of event. Folders, color-coded tabs, two printed banners rolled flat with paperweights at the corners.
one gold, one silver, both reading *Weststarr Anniversary*
She is holding them both up to the light when I walk in.
"Gold or silver?" she asks, without looking at me.
"Silver," I say absently, and then keep talking, because I have been carrying the events of the garden for the better part of two hours and need somewhere to put them.
By the time I reach the part about the pen, Maria has set the banners down and is making the appropriate noises of sympathy, though her eyes have drifted back to the gold banner in a way that suggests she has already made her decision and is simply going through the motions of consultation.
"He broke my pen, Maria. My favorite pen."
"Your pen?" she says. "Gold is definitely better. The silver looks like it's trying too hard."
"Maria."
"Sorry, sorry" She pushes both banners aside and turns to face me "Okay. I'm here. What actually happened."
I sit down.
Then stand back up.
I do this sometimes when something is running too fast in my chest — I can't stay still, need to be moving or at least have the option of it. I cross to the small sink in the corner of the room, turn the tap on for no reason, turn it off again, and look at my reflection in the mirror above it.
I look so tired.
"Who does he think he is," I say.
Maria tilts her head. "Lorenzo."
"Obviously him."
"What did he actually do?"
"What did he..." I stop. And take a deep breath . "He sat next to me in the garden without being invited. Took my sketchbook. Took my phone. Went through my bag..."
"He went through your bag?"
"Completely upended it. Over the table. Everything everywhere."
I gesture at a surface that isn't the relevant table but serves the purpose well enough.
"And then he" I think about the hand on my shoulder.
The way the space between us went from a distance to a decision in under a second.
The expression with nothing performative left in it , just cold and focused and entirely certain of itself.
"He had the nerve to act like I had done something to him."
Maria is quiet for a moment. "What did you do?"
"Nothing."
"Shopi."
"I was sitting in the garden drawing a tree Maria . That's it. That is the entire story."
I cross back to the fireplace and drop onto the leather sofa .
I stare into the fire completely lost in my thoughts .
"And it was my favourite pen," I add, because that feels important to me.
And watch her pulls her knees up onto the sofa and wraps her arms around them, considering me with the expression she wears when she is about to say something I won't immediately want to hear but will probably acknowledge later was accurate.
"You know you're the first, right?" she says.
I look at her. "The first what."
"The first girl who doesn't" she pauses, selecting her words with care, "you knwo fall over herself when he walks into a room."
"What?"
She presses her lips together against a smile. "I mean. The first girl who isn't particularly interested in..."
"Maria."I say not getting anything from her face expressions and choices of words.
"him. In that way." She stops. Makes a face I can't entirely interpret it's somewhere between trying to maintain composure and genuine concern for her own wellbeing. "You genuinely don't see it."
"See what."
"My God, Shopi," she says finally, at a volume and with a casualness that makes it immediately mortifying. "You're the first girl not chasing after him for sex or his money"she finally calls the devil by it name.
"What!?" The shift in topic is so abrupt I nearly choke.
"So what," I say, once I have recovered sufficiently, "it's my fault that I'm not obsessed with him?"
"No, no, no..." Maria leans forward quickly. "That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying it's probably why he can't leave you alone. You're the first person who's given him the cold shoulder. For someone like him, that's basically an unsolved problem. And he doesn't like unsolved problems."
I stare at the ceiling.
"So his ego," I say slowly, "is so enormous that the existence of one person who is not interested in him constitutes a threat to the natural order."
"Welcome to Weststarr."Maria claps in her hands leaning back aswell.
I close my eyes.
The fire crackles quietly.Even though it's completely useless to have a fire in when it's alsmost 35 degrees outside. hearing the sound, the crackling wood calm me finally down.
"But honestly " I say my eyes still closed and my head rest in the sofa "i dont see it all is wanna do when I see his annoying face is punch him or throw something at him"I tell her honestly lost in my thoughts and the crackling sound of the fire.
"I know "she laughs and I hear her standing up.
"You should have seen his house," I continue. "It's just... everything. Like, seriously, I don't get it."
"Shopi..."
"I would rather sleep on the street than share a bed with..."
"Shopi..."
" ...with this arrogant idiot! "
"Shopi! " she shouts, louder this time, and throws a pencil at my head.
"What? " I open my eyes and sit up straight, following her gaze to the door and back to her.
This is not seriously happenig
"Oh," he says, the accent settling into the English
"Miss innocent." A slight tilt of his head. "That's a choice of words I wasn't expecting."
Maria has gone completely still.
"How long have you been standing there," I ask not really knwoing if I want to hear the answer.
"Long enough," he says, "to find out that Miss Innocent has opinions about me." His eyes move to Maria in a easy and unhurried way,like he is sharing a private observation with the room itself. "Our little Sophia."
The word lands somewhere it isn't supposed to.
"Excuse me," I say.
He isn't listening. Still looking at Maria with that expression the one that says the world is a mildly entertaining place and he is in no particular rush to leave it.
"Excuse me."
I stand up and cross the room . Stop directly in front of him close enough that I have to tilt my chin upward slightly, which I resent immediately, which he notices immediately, which I resent more.
"We are in the middle of something," I say.
He looks down at me. One eyebrow lifts"So," he says pleasantly, "you were talking about who's been in my bed."
"That is not what..."
"No reason to go red."He bends down slight and adds "Stalker."in a teasingly way.
I am not red you idiot
The warmth of his breath touches the side of my neck and something sharp and inconvenient and entirely unwelcome moves through my chest .
"What do you dream about at night," I say, and look straight up at him, and do not blink.
He holds my gaze for one second too long.Before he looks down at my hands.
"So what were you doing then ?"
I have, without realising it, picked something up from Maria's table a folder and a pen because apparently I have needed something physical between me and the specific problem of standing this close to him.
"Party planning," I say. Steady. "We are planning a party."
"I see." He nods slowly.
"Yeah."
"So you won't need this."
He reaches into his jacket with all the time in the and pulls out a folded sheet of paper and holds it between two fingers
The measurement sheet.
My hand moves fast, automatic before I have consciously made a decision about it and he pulls it back without even looking, a reflex so practised it barely registers as effort. And suddenly there is almost no space between us, and his eyes are on mine, and neither of us is smiling anymore.
"Give it to me," I say.
Something shifts in his jaw. He looks at me as though I am something he is still in the process of figuring out and is not entirely pleased about how long it is taking.
A beat.
"Chill, stalker."
He holds the paper out and places it in my hand.
"Completely filled out," he says. "Every measurement."
I stare down at it.
Then back up at him.
I do not know which part confuses me more the fact that I have, for approximately three seconds, lost myself somewhere in his eyes without meaning to, or the fact that he has simply given me the paper.
No conditions. No transaction. Two hours ago he said tomorrow.
In a way that als it brought me to throw my Apel at his head .
And now he is standing here with an expression I have no name for, and the paper is in my hand, and nothing about any of it adds up.
"Why," I say not truly baying his sudden change of heart.
"Let's just say" He pauses. The corner of his mouth moves he Loks like a chield beig told by his perents to apologize for samthug and still refusing to .
"We should start over."
He straightens slightly.
"I'm Lorenzo Calloway."
I stare at him.
He says it like it is the most natural thing in the world. Like we are at a dinner party. Like the last three weeks have not happened.
"What?"
Is he sick ?
I open my mouth. Close it.
"So." Easy. Unhurried. "We have a game later. And an after-party at Pier Seven. Everyone's invited."
"Pier Seven?" Maria materializes at my shoulder from nowhere, already radiant, already committed to an idea she has formed in under two seconds.
I do not turn around.
I do not look away from him.
"Are you serious," I say. "Why would I want to go anywhere with you."
"Be my guest." A slight lift of one shoulder "The offer stands either way."
"Sure." I hold his gaze. "And what exactly is the plan ...push me overboard? Poison the drinks?"
His eyes move, slow and deliberate, to somewhere just behind my left shoulder.
"Your friend," he says, with a measured calmness "has some serious trust issues."
And I feel Maria nod.
I turn and give her a look that should be classified as a weapon.
Before turning back to him "Why are you playing this game," I say. Quietly. The words arrive before I have decided to give them to him, and the moment they do I know I cannot take them back.
Something moves through his eyes .
"Midnight, Sophia." Just as quietly. "Don't be late."
"I rather stick my tongue at a frozen wall" I hiss back seeing for a fiction of a second hiw his jaw tightens and his kind mask slips of his face.
"Suit yourself"
Then he steps back. At the door he pauses without turning around, existing in the space one moment longer than he needs to.
"Nice party planning," he says.
I can hear the smile in it from across the room."especially when holding everything upside down"
And then he is gone.
"What" Maria says finally"was that? Did Lorenzo Calloway just invite you to his game and his after-party?" She squeaks slightly and promptly chokes on a nut.
"I don't know what he just did"
I am still standing in the same spot, holding the paper he has given me without asking for anything in return.
Let's start over again His words fining in my head.
Over my dead body.