The Book of Firsts

Fifty-Four

Friday brought me Bran, sitting at the picnic table, focused on his laptop.

"I hear you’re in a foul mood," I said, sitting beside him.

"Not talking to people is not easy," Bran said, writing a formula in a cell of a spreadsheet. "I’ll probably have to give up the idea."

This was the first time I’d heard his voice directly, and I found it more recognisable than it had been over the phone. "It’s like I’ve only ever known you when you had a rotten cold," I said.

"Most of this school has only known me when I had that voice," he said, with a twisted smile. "Where’s somewhere really public I can suddenly start talking loudly?"

"Aren’t you three doing presentations or something at the Sports Carnival?"

"I’ll never last another week—not unless I want to write lines for being impolite to teachers."

"Have lunch in the cafeteria and chat a lot?"

"Probably simplest." He did something that highlighted a handful of names on the screen. "This won’t take me long."

The spreadsheet seemed to list competitors for the Sports Carnival. "And here I thought your contribution to the Student Council was purely decorative. What are you checking?"

"People signed up for more than three events. Theoretically something the teachers should be on top of, but they love nothing more than putting students in charge of these things."

"I’ll enjoy the view while waiting then."

Propping my chin on my hand, I settled in. He glanced at me, but didn’t say anything else, turning back to the spreadsheet and ignoring me while I catalogued his features. Excellent proportions, lovely jaw, extraordinary skin quality. Oatmeal-coloured hair shadowing dark brows and grey eyes in a fatal combination. His lashes weren’t as long as Rin’s, but they were dark, and made his eyes stand out even more. He had the best cheekbones of the three, almost on Carr’s level.

Currently, he also had a hint of pink to the tip of his ears, making it impossibly tempting to tease him. Who knew the surly, irredeemably gruff boy had a touch of marshmallow to his innards? I restrained myself, opting for small talk.

"Rin said you like camping. What’s your ideal camping trip?"

Bran saved his spreadsheet, mailed it off, and shut down the laptop before answering.

"The best we’ve had so far was Lake Carnavan in mid-autumn. We canoed to an island, fished, and roasted the only thing we managed to catch over the fire. The weather was just cold enough to appreciate the fire without truly needing it. Carnavan’s up north, if you don’t know it—well away from any cities. We could see the Orion Spur."

"Sounds beautiful," I said, in part because his voice was so easy and pleasant now, with only a hint of a burr. "You managed to get Rin not to sleep in his car?"

"That was before he had one. Given their hiking in Patagonia, I take it your parents aren’t averse to wilderness trips?"

"They try to fit in a week every year. They used to be very gung-ho, but now they usually do the thing where you carry just a day pack, and your camping supplies are waiting for you at a point on the trail ahead. Which is a philosophy that works well for me."

"Do you have a favourite trip?"

"Not strictly camping, but we took a boat and toured all these tiny islands in Indonesia, and each afternoon we would anchor on the prettiest, string up hammocks, and sleep beneath the stars. I was fourteen, and very into SCUBA diving, so I just loved the whole experience." I laughed. "Also my dad’s least favourite trip because that’s where we met this guy who has persistently shown up in front of my mother to shake his tail and suggest that my dad’s is a little moth-eaten. My parents have turned shutting him down into a private sport, but it’s still annoying."

"Bugs always try to work their way in," Bran said, which might be a reflection of his long relationship with Meggan.

"Any French poetry today?"

Bran snorted. "How many languages do you actually speak?" he asked.

"I can more or less understand around twelve, but speaking is a different question. I have a rough grasp of Mandarin, for instance, but I’m hopeless speaking it. I’m only considered fluent in English, French, Pinyin, and Spanish."

"Only?" he said, with a twisted smile. "I think I need to give you another dancing lesson to balance out my ego."

"Have I been that bad a student?"

"You can dance to a basic level if you’re concentrating on it," Bran told me, tone making it clear this was a very low bar. He picked up his phone and made a few selections. "Let’s try you with waltz first. This is a medley of suitable music. Rules are no stopping, no looking at your feet, and no counting out loud."

These rules proved difficult to follow, but Bran expertly corrected me when I fell out of step. Dance isn’t something I had the time or motivation to take up properly, but I had to admit that when you had a good partner, there was a unique feeling I’d not encountered before.

"Cheshire is the perfect name for you," Bran said, after three songs. "The way you smile when you’re particularly enjoying yourself almost leaves afterimages."

"Thank you," I said, with a laugh. I tilted my head a little, then added: "I’m trying to work out if that’s the first compliment you’ve given me. Oh, no, wait. Nice legs. You started out strong."

"Are you going to continue to wear unnecessarily long skirts next year?" he asked, pulling me closer as the music shifted into a slow dance.

"I haven’t really thought that far ahead. Most of my current wardrobe is school uniform, so I’ll have to shop." I shrugged. "I’ve been enjoying being low key this year. Perhaps the same number of admirers, but a lot less talk about me on forums."

He smirked. "The talk about you lately has been highly amusing."

"Ye-es." Lania’s obedient attempts to spread word of my long-distance boyfriend had given me a reputation for being a delusional fangirl. "Perhaps I’ve been dressing a little too far down."

"Don’t you have any photographs to prove you’re not making it up?"

"Sure. But what fun would that be?"

"Preferable to be mocked on the forums?"

"Preferable to have them mock me openly, let them gloat for a while, and then have Christophe post something on his Instagram. A good face-slapping needs build-up to be truly relished."

"We all have our little hobbies," he said, and kissed me.

We danced, shedding clothes all over the lawn, and finally found one of the café chairs. This was a great position with Bran, because I could kiss him a lot before and after the energetic part. For kissing, Bran truly is incomparable.

"Is Kyou feeling any better?" I asked, much later.

"Three quarters recovered. He’ll be back next week."

"Did you end up getting an apartment together?"

He nodded. "We looked for one in your building—and there actually was one available—but we regained our sanity and found something a block away from the school instead."

"Tomas would certainly have found you moving in next door to me interesting," I observed, glad I wasn’t fooling around with extreme idiots. "Has he done anything incriminating yet?"

"Nothing. I’ve decided to provoke him." He glanced at me, expression complicated, but then started looking for his clothes.

Wondering if it was the potential danger or something else that had produced a sense of evasion, I weighed my responses, but simply told him to be careful and tidied myself off to Art Club.

"Mika. Got a minute?"

Lania had asked me in Home Room if I was planning on Art Club today, so I knew there was something she wanted to talk about even before hearing her faintly worried tone.

"What’s up?" I asked, as we strolled toward the long building that housed all the art rooms.

"Can I ask, um, oh, this is going to sound weird."

"Intriguing! Is it something we can safely talk about in front of Sean, or do you want to walk down to the river to chat?"

"River’s probably a good idea."

We followed the path past the building, and I remembered seeing Rin, Bran and Kyou going by here, what seemed like centuries ago.

"New boat house is nearly finished," I observed as we approached. "Now the weather’s improved, I think I might have lunch down here occasionally. I’m surprised more people don’t."

"The walk back up is hell on the calves," Lania said. "And if you’re not paying attention, it’s easy to end up missing class."

And in early spring, it was chilly and damp by the river, despite the sunshine. We found a bench sunbathing on a low rise and sat down.

"This is going to sound really nosy, Mika, but how—how rich are your parents?"

I paused, then shrugged. "When I started at this school, I thought they were positively rolling in it, but they’re certainly low on the rich list of parents here. Five or six years ago they were comfortably middle-class, but then we hit a really rough patch: my paternal grandmother got tricked by some phone scam and nearly lost her house and my parents took out a lot of loans to help her out. Just as we were reduced to living on rice and the smell of cooking from downstairs, both their careers went up a notch. My mother can earn around a half million US a year now, as a special consultant. My Dad is more complicated. Atherton Mullahy, for instance, only earns him about $15,000 a book, but the rise of self-publishing turned Rock Hardison into a steady income stream, and he has a loyal readership there. For his more literary pen name he signed with a new publisher who really supported him, and he’s been popular enough there that his backlist has been reprinted, and there’s been a bunch of translations and other deals that all added up. What felt like endless money falling from the sky is still small change here, I know, but they’re legitimate multi-millionaires now, and they did it from nothing. Is it important for my parents to be rich?"

"Yes," Lania said, firmly. "Last night my dad told me that your mother has been suggesting that my parents could start their own boutique accounting firm, and that your parents could be their first clients."

"Really?"

That startled me considerably, mainly because I knew and liked my parents' accountant, so after a moment’s thought I fished out my phone and called my mother, setting audio to speaker.

"Mum, is Evelyn retiring?"

"Working her way to it," my mother said. "Probably the beginning of next year."

"Wow. End of an era."

"She says she’s going to wallow in the Seychelles with her 'attendants'."

"That sounds like Evelyn. How do the Nicholls come into it?"

"I recommended them as a handover possibility. Ryan already deals with unusual cases, and Rachel’s got a solid foundation in international tax law, along with being creative. Evelyn said she’d test them out on a couple of accounts, to see if they have potential, starting with me and a client local to Helios. I think they’ll do well, and if they do, Evelyn will take them on as junior accountants, and spend the rest of the year teaching them all her tricks. Not all Evelyn’s clients will take the handover, of course, but enough will to give Rachel and Ryan a foothold."

"I can only pity them if they end up trying to keep Dad’s taxes in line."

"Now that Gareth has a more…contactable agent, that’s no longer such as Sisyphean task. How’s school, kiddo? How are you sleeping?"

"I’m doing pretty well. How’s the mine?"

"Depressing. Interesting on a technical level. The Chief of Operations is tolerable. But I’m in the busiest phase now, so I’ll chat to you later."

"Okay. Bye Mum."

I killed the connection and smiled at Lania.

"Evelyn’s this incredible New Yorker: tiny, about seventy, has a voice like gravel, and wears a bobbed platinum blond wig to set off her blood-red lipstick. She runs an international tax service for billionaires who try to cling to their ethics as well as their money, so it’s all about tax minimisation without actually being tax evasion. One of my Mum’s clients recommended her when we were still digging Nan’s house out of its multiple mortgages, and my parents went to meet her and ended up on this incredible bar crawl that started in Manhattan and somehow ended up in Chicago. The first thing she did after they all sobered up was tell my dad to change his agent because his current one was not only a flake, she was cheating my dad in every way possible. If Evelyn does recommend your parents to her wildly diverse clientele, not only will it be just about as interesting as accounting can ever get, but, well, it’s lucrative enough that Evelyn not only keeps a toy boy, she keeps several. She likes to oil their abs. So, I definitely think it’s a good idea for your parents to at least give it a shot."

Lania laughed unevenly. "For the abs?"

"I’m not sure they come with the business."

"Mika, everything seems to take a turn for the fantastic when you’re involved."

"I’d offer to be your manic pixie dream girl, but I don’t think I’m nearly quirky enough. Feeling less worried?"

"Still thinking about the abs."