32 | Taylor
Taylor
“There you are, boy.” A fully dressed Tom gestures to the dog lying on my kitchen floor. “I woke up and he wasn’t there.”
“You need to get a hold of your beast,” I say. “He’s been bothering me for the past week.”
“Bothering you?”
“Yes. Like trying to get in bed with me at night and waiting for me while I shower.” Vinnie likes to trick the staff into being let in by lying outside my doors and looking depressed.
“Don’t mind him,” Tom says. “He’s always been a little perverted.”
Vinnie greets my brother with a lick to the hand before trotting back over to me. I stare deep into the void of his jet-black eyes. There’s absolutely no thought running in his head. God, I wish I were him.
“What the hell happened to your face?” Tom asks.
“I got punched by an American.”
He squints.
“It’s not a hickey.” Evidently, the more it heals, the more hickeyish it looks.
Tom rubs his chin. “I don’t know what’s less plausible, you getting in a fight or you getting laid.”
I won’t tell him both happened. Although Melina being a vacation lay is what I’m trying not to think about.
The flight back was silent and cold. She only asked me questions about travel logistics.
I’m going to miss her questions. I’m going to miss the way she looked at me so intently when I answered them.
I wish I could scoop her up and run away with her to America or Antarctica or anywhere on the planet where no one will give a shit about us.
We could open a bed and breakfast in the woods where our few and far-between customers are mostly hikers and birdwatchers.
She could paint, and I could cook her dinner every night.
Hell, don’t I deserve a fairytale ending? I’m a prince for fuck’s sake.
Tom gestures his head toward the brownies on the counter. “Did you make those?”
I nod. I found a recipe online and was in the mood for some direction-following.
He looks at his watch. “It’s nine in the morning.”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Hey, did you bring me back some of Cassie’s weed like I asked?”
I look at the tray of brownies, then scratch my eyebrow. “Uh, about that—”
Thomas gasps like an actress in a film noir. “You didn’t. You cooked my weed, Taylor?”
His gaze shifts to Vinnie lying at my feet, to the brownies on the counter, then to me in my glasses, sweatpants, and the T-shirt a Dartmouth student gave me, depicting our unofficial mascot, Keggy the Keg. I watch as his brain forms a rare, comprehensive thought.
“Did Melina break up with you?”
I can’t deal with him right now. I’m too exhausted.
“You can’t break something that never existed,” I say into my phone.
Tom blinks. “You’re wallowing.”
“No. Productive people don’t wallow.” I point to the pot brownies as evidence of my productivity. “I’m just, uh, brooding. They’re completely different.” I wave him off and resume my doomscrolling.
He points at me. “You are absolutely wallowing. Look at you, you look like a soggy paper straw standing there. Cooking my drugs like some sad Walter White. Wearing T-shirts ironically.”
I flip him off. My middle finger stands sad and flaccid. I’m not in the mood for digs relating to eco-friendly utensils. He always says I bottle my emotions, but bottling things is good. It’s how we get wine and extra virgin olive oil.
“Sorry,” he says while taking the tray of brownies. “These are mine.”
“Be careful with—”
He’s already left.
––––––––
Julien and I are preparing to announce the name of our charity soon.
So far, the operation has been underground.
Now we have enough employees and legal documents to legitimize the foundation.
We’ve obtained a significant number of backers over the past couple of months.
I’m told it’s because of Julien’s ability to schmooze and my inherent star power (his words, not mine).
I know it’s because throughout her life, my mother had built a strong network of friends whom she cherished and showered with baked goods. She’s the one who did the work.
Julien slaps a hand on his desk. “So, what are we going to do for the launch?”
“I was thinking of keeping it low-key. Our entire philosophy has been to allocate as much money as possible to the actual do-gooding. Why stop now? We could invite a few of the top donors to dinner. I could host.”
“And you could cook.”
“Me...cook,” I say like a caveman. “Why?”
“I think we sell them on the scrappiness of how we’re running it.”
I scoff. “My cooking isn’t scrappy.”
“I guarantee they would all brag to their acquaintances about how Prince Taylor made them dinner.” He throws his arms out to emphasize my grandeur.
“You want people to pay to be friends with me,” I sum up.
“Yes,” he admits without shame. “So try not to be an asshat. For the kids.”
He may have a point, and Julien hasn’t steered me wrong so far.
“Fine. But you guys are helping. I’m not cooking for ten people by myself.”
Jules scratches his jaw. “I actually don’t know how to, uh, Rachel is usually the one who—”
“You’re useless.”
Two laughs from down the hallway interrupt our conversation. I haven’t heard her laugh since last week. Since I was happy.
“They went out for a friend’s birthday,” Julien explains. “I’m going to make sure they’re not throwing up into each other’s hair.”
And with that wonderful visual, I check my phone to see that it’s midnight. “I should go, anyway,” I mumble as he leaves.
As I close my laptop, the sound of heels echoes down the hallway at the pace of a ticking clock.
For a split second, I thought she was Rachel, but after stepping into the light, I see it’s just a blonde wig.
Melina is wearing an intoxicated smile along with a yellow plaid jacket and matching skirt, mini enough to show the lace at the top of her white thigh highs. She looks like a jaundiced schoolgirl.
“Melina,” I greet her before turning back to unplug my phone from Julien’s charger.
“Taylor Guilbert Alexandria le Favresse-Reginald II.” She butchers my name like she’s casting a magic spell. “Julien said that you were here,” she slurs. “Wanted to say hi.”
“And do what?” I turn back to face her. “Tell me you’ve been a very bad girl?”
She looks down at her outfit. “S’Halloween,” she clarifies as if I couldn’t use my context clues to figure that out. “I’mCherfromCluelessbestmovieofalltime.”
What?
I try to leave, but she’s standing on the threshold like a gate.
“Did you, uh, have a...fun night?” I ask to the ceiling.
“Yep-a-roony,” she says. “D’you go trick-or-treating?”
I shake my head. Citing cruel security reasons, I wasn’t allowed to go trick-or-treating as a kid.
“While you’ve been out God knows where drinking nail polish remover, I’ve been here writing thank-you notes.” I grab one off the desk and show her.
Julien thinks the donors (who are mostly older) will feel more important if they get something handwritten from me. Boomers like that kind of shit, he explained.
“You have very princely handwriting,” she says in a British accent for some reason.
I put the card down. “Well, I guess that would make sense.”
“That looked like the Treaty of Paris.”
“What do you want, Melina?”
She leans against the doorframe. “I dunno. I just thought you’d enjoy how short this skirt is.”
This is painfully endearing.
“I’m not into blondes.”
To her credit, if she were sober, she’d just have to snap her fingers, and I would’ve slid everything off Julien’s desk and acted out her twisted teacher/student fantasy right then and there.
She slides the wig off, then tugs at the elastic of her bun to let down her real hair. I shouldn’t have joked. Now she just looks like herself.
“I feel like Hannah Montana,” she says while scratching her head like it’s been itchy for decades.
“Melina, darling.” I put my hands on her shoulders, then meet her at eye level like they tell you to do with children. “You’re making a fool of yourself.”
She bites her cheek. That seemed to get through to her.
After turning around, she instantly stumbles on her first step.
I quickly grab her arm before she topples over. “Take your shoes off. You’re going to kill yourself in those.”
She scowls at me, then steps out of her pumps. “You’re so demanding.”
“I know,” I say as I pick them up off the floor. “How are you getting home?”
“I was gunna take an Uber or a...Uber or something.”
“I can take you.”
“You don’t have to do that, but I ’preciate the jester.”
I lean her up against me, so she keeps in a straight line. “I do.”
I don’t want her drunk and alone in the back of some stranger’s car. And I don’t want her falling up those dark, rickety steps to her apartment.
“Do you have a coat or any worldly possessions you took with you on your journey?”
She waves a lazy index finger toward the living room. “Bag. Couch,” she yawns.
Soon, I collect her by the door and herd her into the backseat of the car. After asking my driver how his day is going, Melina slumps against my shoulder.
“Can I tell you something?”
I look at the top of her head. “Okay, but just remember you’re plastered, so don’t say anything stupid.”
“You wanted to know my biggest fear, right?”
“No, don’t tell me that. If you didn’t want to say it sober, you probably don’t want to say it now.” Although I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t curious.
“Horses,” she whispers.
I nudge her off me. “Huh?”
“It’s fucking horses, okay? I hate how big they are and the horse noises they make.” She leans back on the headrest. “The neighing or whatever.”
“I remember you saying I’d use this information to torture you. How would that be possible? Horse torture? Is that a thing? Do I put a dead one in your bed à la The Godfather ?”
“I saw a picture of you next to one in your photo album.” When did she get her hands on a photo album? “And riding horses, isn’t that like...prince shit?” She plays with the window button, lowering the glass up and down.
“Like a Disney movie?” I ask slowly.
The Mouse has been creating false stereotypes for us princes for decades.
The fact that I’ve tried to save a distressed damsel is purely coincidental.
As it turned out, she wasn’t even in real distress.
Moreover, I haven’t ridden a horse since I was a child.
Tom, on the other hand, is a lifelong horse girl, but he likes betting more than riding anyway.
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“’Cus, it doesn’t matter anymore. You don’t want to look at me or torture me or want anything to do with me.”
I lean my head against the cool window. Actually, I want everything to do with Melina. Therein lies the problem.
The sounds of the Halloween rowdiness get louder as we turn onto her street.
The trick-or-treaters have all gone and been replaced by straggling adults dressed in ridiculous costumes.
I spot a banana, sexy Willy Wonka, my grandmother (thankfully unsexy).
When we pull up to her apartment, Melina tries to exit, but I grab her wrist before she can pull the handle.
“Wait a sec, there’s a lot of people outside.” People who have phones and phones that have cameras.
Melina looks down at the wig in her hand, is struck by a moment of drunk clarity, then holds it up to me. I’m only slightly sure I know what she’s insinuating.
“No.”
“I know how to solve problems, Taylor. Woman in STEM, right here.” She points two thumbs at herself.
“Yes, you’re very smart. Let’s just wait for the Scooby-Doo gang to pass. Then we’ll get out.”
Melina shrugs. “Worked for me.”
I hate that she has to think about being recognized. “Have you been getting bothered this week?”
“Don’t worry about me, Taylor,” she dismisses.
I don’t think I can.
Once the coast is clear, I help her out of the car and very carefully bring her up the steps to the unit.
With her arm slung around my shoulder, Melina fishes the keys out of her bag.
I take them and open the door for her. After toeing off her heels and deserting them in the middle of the living room, she stumbles towards her bedroom.
I hear her flop onto the mattress when I enter the kitchen.
While taking down a glass from the cabinet, I notice she’s added the Cape Cod fridge magnet to her ever-growing collection.
There’s also a sketchbook lying open on the counter.
I recognize the pencil-drawn landscape instantly.
It’s the view of the ocean from Cassie’s house.
It’s in black and white but incredibly hyper-realistic.
I flip through some other pages. She’s been drawing plants, mostly.
Her muse seems to be this one orchid she’s redrawn about seven times over, each from a different angle.
A bed squeaks and I shut the book. This is none of my business.
With a glass of water and some aspirin, I head into Melina’s room to find her face-down in a position like Christ on a cross. I gently pull down her off-kilter skirt to re-conceal her ass.
“Melina.”
She waves me off.
I put the glass of cold water against her forehead. Her eyes open one at a time; left, right.
“Drink this for me.”
I hand her the glass and she downs the whole thing in one go.
“Good?”
She nods and flops back down on her side. “Bedtime story?” she asks to her pillow.
“Once upon a time, there was a fair lady who poisoned herself and a very nice prince who went way too much out of his way to help her.”
“And they all lived happily ever after.”
One can hope.
I place the aspirin on the nightstand for her to take in the morning. Before I leave the room, she whispers, “Taylor.”
I turn around.
“Come’ere.” She beckons me with a floppy hand.
I walk back over. “What?”
“Closer.”
I brush the hair out of her eyes, then turn off her bedside lamp just as she says, “I wish you were an accountant.”
Melina tries to reach my hand, misses, then lets her arm hang off the side of the bed. Translation: she wishes I were easier.
“I’ve done some accounting, actually.”
“Really,” she barely makes out.
“Yep.”
Office life was banally peaceful when I worked at the embassy in D.C.
. My days were full of Microsoft Excel, scheduling appointments, and data entry.
A coworker gave me a cactus, which I kept on my desk.
I remember feeling like they were treating me like a child.
(Well, I was in my early twenties, I was a child.) This was compounded by the fact that I’m pretty sure they knew the only reason I was there was because my dad told me if I wanted to stay in America, I had to be ‘doing something productive’ and ‘not just smoking pot and having sex all the time’.
That job might’ve saved me from becoming a hooligan.
“And you want to know something?” I continue.
She hums.
“It was really fucking boring.”
Melina mumbles a drunken laugh. Maybe I should stay a few minutes until she’s asleep.