by Eden Crowne
On the verge of telling him about my strange encounter, I found, for some reason the words just wouldn't come. My tongue twisted into knots, the words tangling together in my throat. Try as I might, I could not describe the boy with the English accent. Savan bent his head down, lips brushing my forehead, cheeks and chin. I shivered remembering the other boy's touch, his eyes shifting from green to inky black, what he said and showed me in the mirror.
“What is this on your throat?” Pushing my hair back, he tapped a finger on a spot near the pulse of the jugular.
My hand flew to the skin. Rubbing with my fingertips, it felt sensitive to the touch, almost like I'd been burned. Remembering the strange swirling symbols on my forehead and cheeks, I gripped his arm. “What, Savan? What is it?”
Savan didn't answer. He was looking at the crowd, brows drawn together, an expression on his face I'd never seen before.
I rubbed again at my throat, biting my lip as the burning sensation grew.
Taking my hand, Savan guided me across the club without another word straight to our table. Vanessa and Lilly were laughing, apparently in the middle of some shared joke. Her eyes and dimples twinkling, Vanessa glanced at us. Almost immediately, her face changed. Though her mouth kept smiling, her eyes did not. There was a tense, silent interchange, I thought, between Savan and her. Standing abruptly, she pulled Lilly to her feet.
“Come on gang,” she said, her voice lighthearted, “Change of venue. We are going to a private party at Gallery Eriko.”
I decided to shrug off what happened. The encounter with the green-eyed stranger was, so far, the only blot on the dream-come-true reality of my new life and I decided to forget him. Just some psycho playing mind games. Maybe the Club rejected him. That was probably it. No psychos allowed! As for me, the past few weeks had been beyond perfect. I saw someone from the Club nearly every day: drinks, dinner, gallery openings and glittering clubs filled with people I had seen mostly on the covers of celebrity magazines. Japan is a huge market for films, music, fashion and fun and anybody who was anybody showed up in Tokyo fairly frequently. Savan, Anders, Vanessa or Lilly, or all of them, invariably knew someone. Night after night, there I was, sitting at the VIP table sipping, or pretending to sip, chilled vodka (it tastes vile) or champagne cocktails. At first I took pictures, zipping them off to Paris for the appropriate “oohs and aahs” from my friends. After awhile, though, I stopped. Somehow it was so much more fun to focus all my attention on the Club members.
My pose as a college student on sabbatical was not always easy to maintain and time and again I nearly slipped up. I had school until three in the afternoon. Gradually I found myself cutting a class here or there and eventually whole days. I fabricated notes from my father. He never paid attention anyway. Half the time he wasn't even in the country. Besides, what else could I do? Club members were past the age of notes from home. If they knew I was only sixteen they would never want to be friends with me.
The girls dressed stylishly and my envy was hard to contain. It was on Vanessa's advice I told Dad I needed my own credit card or at least a debit card with access to some cash for clothes. I argued if he wanted me to fit in, I had to look half-way decent. This was a free dress school, my first ever, and I should take advantage of it.
“I didn't know you were interested in fashion.”
Which showed exactly how much attention he'd paid to me over the last year.
“How disconnected are you from my life, Dad? How can I be interested when you give me, like, ten dollars a week for spending money?”
“I give you money when you ask.”
“And I don't ask precisely because you make me beg for it.”
“I don't.”
“To my way of thinking, yes, you do.” I mimicked his deep voice, “'Where are you going? How much are the other girls taking? What does the ticket cost?' You act like I'm a badly performing treasury bond looking to be cashed during a slump.”
I shamed him into it in the end and now I had a debit card with money for “school supplies” (not!) and outings. Actually, it didn't take that much to keep up with the Club socially. We seemed to get in everywhere for free and food and drink just materialized. I never saw a bill and they wouldn't let me pay for anything more expensive than coffee. If we were out very late, which was generally always, Savan insisted on putting me in a cab home and paying the driver.
Lilly and Vanessa introduced their treasure trove of vintage shops scattered around the back streets of the city which helped me update my wardrobe for only a little cash. Lilly also took me to her nail artist. Though I didn't get bells (or diamonds) on my fingers, I now had jewels on my toes. Each pink toenail was airbrushed with a splash of paler pink and a line of sparkling rhinestones running across. Just in time to show off my toe cleavage in spring sandals. Savan was in raptures. Apparently, men like women's toes. What's up with that?
Very soon, instead of my little Tod's loafers, I was wearing spiky sandals with my jeans and showing off my sparkly toes. Lilly, only five-foot-two, said heels were her strategic confidence-boosting weapon.
“They make me feel bold and beautiful,” she told me as I considered a line of tall and taller sandals at a boutique in Harajuku. I bought a pair of brown leather sandals with bronze studs and she was absolutely right. Part of that might have been due to being three inches taller. Not all of it, though. People looked at me differently and I made myself look at Amber Lynne and the Awesome Posse not at all. I boldly went into the cafeteria and sat wherever I wanted. Though the first time I did it I thought I might throw up, I was so nervous. Remembering my mantra, “What would Vanessa do?” the answer was obvious. I walked right in, head held high.
All the Club members swiftly came to mean so much to me, most specially the handsome Italian, Savan. Tall, strong, with those drop-dead classic good looks. I couldn't believe my luck. Holding my hand, leaning close to share a joke or confidence. Little intimacies that built up, here on the cusp of spring, to blossom into perhaps something more. This was all so new, heady and intoxicating, the rush to my senses irresistible. I never questioned it. How funny in retrospect.
We girls gathered our wraps and went to the lockers to retrieve our bags. Lilly was attempting to defy the laws of physics and shove her cell phone, wallet, and lipstick into a black, quilted Chanel bag the size of a juice pack.
Vanessa finally took the wallet from her and slipped it inside her slouchy Gucci hobo. “Really Lilly, you're going to break a nail and ruin your evening. How did you get them inside in the first place?”
Lilly gave a slightly bleary-eyed smile. She had a fondness for blueberry martinis. “Can't remember.”
Taking my own rather nondescript leather bag from the locker, I pulled a little hand mirror out to look at whatever had alarmed Savan. On my throat sparkled a tiny, red, six-pointed star enclosed in a circle. How had that gotten there? Whatever game the British boy was playing, I didn't think I liked it. Laying a finger to the mark, I could feel the blood pulsing beneath and, I thought, something else. A sort of buzzing. There was no sign of the raw swirling pink markings the silver-haired boy had shown me on my face.
Vanessa reached over and moistening a fingertip with her tongue, scrubbed briskly at the mark. “Whatever have you rubbed up against?” Without waiting for an answer, she swept toward the exit. “The gallery is showing this incredible new artist from Finland. Should be great fun,” she said, not even referencing the star. “The Finns are crazy party people! It's party or go mad so near the Arctic Circle.”
Savan was standing near the door and slipped his hand in mine. I gripped it tightly, wanting, needing that reassurance after the strangeness. Looking over my shoulder, I saw a flash of silver. It was the emerald-eyed boy. He looked so angry, I flinched from the expression.
In my head, I heard his voice again. “Run, run while you still can. From them and from me.”
Chapter 12
Truth and Dare
The first week of April and
Tokyo burst into islands of white and pink clouds. Cherry blossoms took over the city totally transforming its drab contours. The trees changed from gray sticks to sugary confections dreamed up by a heavenly pastry chef. Right now, life tasted just as sweet as whipped cream to me. After such an awful start that cold February day, I had turned my luck completely around. Spring really could be about new beginnings. The encounter with the strange emerald-eyed boy gradually faded along with the tiny six-pointed star on my throat. I still couldn't figure out how he had put it there.
Five wonderful weeks passed in a blur of parties, outings, and fun. Five weeks until I couldn't stand it any longer and decided to tell them I'd lied about college. That I was still in high school. New beginnings, truth or dare. I loved them for who they were – Vanessa, Savan, naughty Lilly, Anders – and couldn't bear deceiving them any longer.
We were sitting on the terrace of the matte -black Cafe Sacre de' Coeur Cafe, overlooking Harajuku's main boulevard, Omote Sando, and the fashionable crowds beneath. This was a place to stare and be stared at and given the company I was keeping, we drew plenty of stares. A light spring breeze danced through the trees lining the street; tossing the branches. Harajuku didn't have any cherry trees. That didn't seem to bother the spring crowds. They were just as intent on looking at new clothes as new blossoms and the boulevard was packed with shoppers. The whole cafe grew suddenly silent when a lilting bird call sounded from one of the nearby trees.
I looked at Vanessa.
“Nightingale,” she explained.” Rare to hear them downtown like this. Just as much a harbinger of the season as the cherry blossoms. Japanese love their nightingales, which as far as I can tell, never sing at night.” She flashed me a smile that seemed to reach out and give me a hug.
And that was it. The waitress set down our order of tall iced coffees and teas and I told them I was in high school. Of course, as soon as I said it, I burst into tears, startling the waitress who nearly knocked over one of the glasses. People at the tables around us stared even harder.
“I'm sorry,” I sobbed. “Didn't mean to make a scene.”
Savan leaned close – we were sitting next to each other – and wiped away the tears. “Who cares what they think? This has been weighing on your mind, hasn't it? All this time. Poor thing.”
His concern just made me cry harder, “Now you will hate me. I'm just a child.”
They all rushed at once to disagree, “No, we don't hate you. How could anyone hate you? It makes no difference at all. You are so mature.”
“So sophisticated.”
“So adorable.”
“You're our friend!”
“It signifies nothing.” Tossing her long black hair, Lilly snapped her trademark bejeweled fingers to show her indifference at this new information. “Age is just a random group of numbers imposed on us like a prison sentence.”
“However,” Vanessa slipped her tortoise shell Versace sunglasses down a notch to peer at me over the rim, “we do have a rule that to become a full member, you must be at least eighteen. You are eighteen, aren't you?”
“I, I didn't know,” I choked out, my heart jumping into my throat.
“There seemed no reason to mention it at the time,” she inclined her head, still looking at me.
The tears welled up in my eyes again, spilling over. Look what telling the truth had gotten me. They wouldn't let me be a member anymore. Lies were better, obviously. Oh God! What was I going to do without them?
Savan took out a handkerchief and dabbed at my cheeks gently with one hand, lifting my chin with the other. “But wait, darling Alexandra, your birthday, it is almost here isn't it?”
“Yes, May seventh.”
“You will be eighteen then, won't you?”
A chance, I still had a chance. Damn the truth. I nodded, stammering, “Yes, yes. Eighteen.”
He turned with a triumphant smile to the others, “It is settled. There will be no impediment then. We will have a party,” he announced.
“A party! A party for Alexandra!” The others took up the cry.
“A big party,” said Savan.
“Absolutely a party!” agreed Vanessa with a gleeful smile. “We will celebrate your birthday, and on the stroke of midnight, you will become a full-fledged member of the Club. We had been planning your official initiation party anyway.”
“Do I get a secret magical mask with ribbons?” I teased, my mood instantly transformed from despair to joy.
Savan gave a little start and backed away from me ever so slightly. I hadn't even remembered the carnival masks until just that moment. Funny. There had been more to it than that. What was it? The image was dancing just behind my eyes. Black. Black eyes. And Savan had looked like an animal. A wolf? Everything was jumbled up. I couldn't seem to pull the memory into focus.
There was a heartbeat of silence before Vanessa laughed her sparkling laugh, light as bubbles, “As many ribbons as you like. More importantly, all new members receive an autographed picture of me, life size!”
“She'd rather have one of Savan!” laughed Lilly.
“Wouldn't we all!” said Anders, a little wistfully, I thought.
Everyone got up from their chairs, crowding around, holding my hands and stroking my hair. “We never would have guessed if you hadn't told us,” Anders said.
“Comes from being an ex-pat,” nodded Vanessa as she sat back down and took a sip of her iced coffee. “They grow up faster.”
April at the Academy meant the Cherry Blossom Ball, as big and important as Prom, maybe more so. Such an event demanded an equally impressive showplace and the school reserved one of the international hotel ballrooms and all the formal, fancy dress that went along with it. High heels, high hopes. I desperately wanted to go, if only to show up Amber Lynne and the Awesome Posse. Maybe now, I could.
Looking into Savan's dark brown eyes, I asked him right then and there if he would be my date for the Cherry Blossom Ball. It was a gamble, I knew it. My real age might come out. No, I thought again. Who would tell him? Nobody even knew who I was beyond the butt of Awesome Posse jokes. And even if he learned I was a Junior, not a Senior, I could put it down to our constant moving. I wanted to go so, so badly.
Jumping to his feet, he gave a formal little bow. “I would be honored.” Then he clicked his heels together old-movie style and we all laughed.
Later, quietly, when the others were talking of this and that, I said to him, “You don't think I'm too young for you?”
Exhaling softly, he brushed my forehead with his lips, whispering back, “Dear Alexandra, I can wait, but not too long.”
Chapter 13
Green with Envy
Every head turned to stare as we descended the grand staircase at the Cherry Blossom Ball. 'And who could blame them?' I thought smugly.
Savan looked like a prince come to life. Not some smarmy Disney kind. A real prince, as if he stepped out of a royally commissioned painting by Raphael. Tall, with his dark hair shining, the perfectly-cut tuxedo accentuating the strong lines of his body, the mysterious inner light giving him an aura no one could ignore. As for me, I had no doubt I looked every inch a princess. Vanessa and the twins, Stephanie and Cameron, primped, styled and prepped me for this very moment. I was wearing my hair in a high upsweep with a tumble of curls. My dress, a shimmering, sleeveless, floor length sheath of emerald green silk lent to me by Cameron, the long sash trailing behind. I was neither nervous, nor awkward and I walked gracefully down the staircase with Savan, looking out at the assembled students with nothing less than a regal air. I felt strong and powerful, nothing like the Lexie Carpenter of a few short weeks before.
We paused for our picture at the bottom of the staircase and I heard Melanie and Abigail gasp as the photographer declared we were, hands down, the handsomest couple he'd shot all evening.
“This is going to look like a coronation portrait,” he laughed.
We laughed with him, knowing it was true. We gave him our names and walked on.
I only glanced at the ballroom draped in pale pinks, gold, and light spring green, keeping my eyes on Savan. He was the handsomest man in the room. No contest. All the boys seemed gawky and immature next to the power and masculinity radiating from him. It came as a surprise when the red-blond head of Amber Lynne suddenly stepped into view as she boldly inserted herself between Savan and me without a word or nod in my direction. Holding out her hand to him, she said with a flirty tilt to her head, “Well, hello, welcome to the Ball. I'm Amber Lynne.”
Brushing her aside gently but firmly, Savan cut her off completely, not even acknowledging her presence with a look. “Come Alexandra, let us find a less noisome space.” We walked away and I had the satisfaction of seeing her cheeks flush bright red. Amber Lynne was not the sort of girl used to being snubbed by handsome men.
“Was that one of the awful posse, the mean girls?” he whispered as we moved away.
I nodded vigorously. “The meanest.” Once the truth came out about my age, well, the almost truth, I shared the juiciest bits of my high school drama with him.
“Good.” He squeezed my hand and we shared a conspiratorial smile.
The students seemed drawn to us. People who had never spoken to me in the halls or in class, began crowding around Savan and me, chatting, making eye contact.
Very shortly Mrs. McCarthy stalked over, her round face ugly with anger. I saw Amber Lynne a few tables away smirking.
“Just who do you think you are young man? This party is for members in good standing of the student body. That does not include porn stars like you, Miss Carpenter, or your gigolo. You may have fooled your father but not me. I've taken your measure.”
I was mortified. Savan in contrast, seemed completely at ease. With one step, he placed himself firmly between Amber Lynne's mother and me, blocking her from my view. He laid his hand on her arm. My handsome Italian seemed much more mature and confident than the plump Principal.
