Page 43 of Exquisite Things

After three days of thunderstorms and five days of drizzle, the sun peeks through our bedroom window on a Sunday morning.

Changeling purrs in delight. She sleeps in our bed every night. I love nothing more than waking up and realizing she’s curled

up between us. Neither of us has to work today. Bram never tutors on Sundays. I have no sessions booked.

I pull Bram out of bed and into the sunlight. We scour the city for Oreo cookies, but they don’t seem to exist in the United

Kingdom. We rush through the aisles of Tesco and land on Spooks biscuits. They’re made from colored dough, and each one has

a ridiculous monster name. Red Devil. Yellow Peril. Green Gremlin. We eat the biscuits as we walk the streets of a new city.

Stroll through Brixton, up to the river. We gaze at the National, where Lily now works. We make the city ours. Even in Mayfair,

where the rules of the old world still apply, we hold hands. We ignore the glares of clenched women and vicious men. When

a teenage boy pretends to sneeze so he can croak out the word screamers for the amusement of his friends, we walk on.

Bram stops outside Claridge’s. An unnerved look in his eyes, like he’s seen a ghost. “That’s where it happened,” he says.

“What?” I ask stupidly.

“Where my father burned the book. Well, some of it at least. Where I became... like this.” His hand tenses in mine. For

perhaps the first time since I’ve known him, he seems genuinely terrified. Like he’s his father’s son again, existing in a

time before I was born. A time before Mother had met Father, when she might have chosen some other path. Perhaps a happier

one.

“Let’s go in,” I say.

Bram shudders. The hairs on his arm stand up.

“You’re scared,” I say. “But you shouldn’t be. This is our time, remember?”

I have to be the brave one today. I lead him inside the majestic building. Into the decadent art deco lobby. Everything inside

screams money. The grit of our London doesn’t exist in this shiny land of marble and gold, of checkered clothes and glass chandeliers.

“It’s changed,” he says. “There used to be a carriage drive.”

“There used to be carriages,” I say. And then, “Everything changes.”

“Except us,” he says wistfully.

“We have definitely changed,” I say. “We used to eat Oreos. Now we eat Spooks.”

He laughs. “A monumental transformation.”

“We used to be apart. Now we’re together. How’s that for monumental?”

The fear exits his gaze. He steels himself with a long inhale. “Let’s have afternoon tea.”

The hostess looks us up and down when we ask for a table.

She’s not the only one. Every gentleman and lady seated in the art deco foyer seem to be hissing at us with their eyes.

Some leer at us directly. Others stare at our reflection covertly in the many mirrors that line the walls, reflecting opulence back at itself.

The cost of the flowers in this one room alone could probably feed a whole neighborhood.

I see us through their eyes. Bram’s platform boots. His long hair, now with streaks of hot pink. The jacket he loves to wear.

The National Front Is an Affront . Me with my new waves of gelled hair. My tight Levi’s. My T-shirt with a decal of Donna Summer’s face on the front. I like

us so much better than I like them.

“Are you guests of the hotel?” the hostess asks.

“No, but we can pay in cash,” I say.

I’m about to pull my wallet out to prove it when Bram stops me. “I’m guessing you would’ve seated us already if we were wearing

Armani suits.”

“That sounds like an accusation,” the hostess says coolly.

“It’s not,” Bram responds. “You don’t make the rules. You simply follow them. I stayed in a suite here with my father once.

If he were still alive, he’d be just like those men inside. Sneering at the filthy faggots invading their pristine little

world.”

“I-I’m sorry,” the hostess says.

“Because my father is dead, or because I’m a filthy faggot?”

“I don’t know... Both.” She puts a hand on Bram’s shoulder. “I’ll put you at a corner table where you won’t be bothered

by the... clientele.”

The afternoon tea doesn’t disappoint in its grandeur. Seasonal fruits. A special blend of tea unique to the hotel. Once the

other patrons have tired of gawking at us, we’re free to gawk at them. We make up a story about each of them.

The lady sitting alone reading Madame Bovary has recently had her heart broken by the young man she’s been sleeping with behind her husband’s back.

The young, blandly beautiful couple feeding each other finger sandwiches like babies are royalty from some Scandinavian country.

The angry-looking man barking at his waiter because his eggs were undercooked has three children, none of whom speak to him.

When we’ve finished eating, my eyes travel to the grand piano in the center of the room. “Do I dare?” I ask Bram, my eyes

on the instrument.

“You absolutely do dare.”

I stand up and walk toward it as if possessed. I don’t ask for permission to play. I simply sit on the bench like it belongs

to me. Put my fingers on the keys and take a deep breath.

I can feel Mother by my side. I warm up with a Phrygian scale just for her. The diminished, eastern sound that always transported

her into a world of fantasy. I smile, imagining she’s playing the scale an octave higher next to me. I feel such gratitude

to her for gifting me her love of music. As long as I have music, she’s still close, isn’t she?

I debate playing Bowie. Donna. Queen. Something rebellious and incongruous with this luxurious room. But I choose Schubert’s

“Fantasie in F Minor” instead. I played it for Bram once before, when he was Shams, when we were strangers to each other.

I look up. The stuck-up guests are learning to love me now. They’re reconsidering the wild child they thought they could dismiss.

Forced to remember what they once knew when they were young, that we are all capable of creating beauty.

My eyes land on Bram as I play the devastatingly romantic melody that feels as vibrant today as it must have when it was written

in 1828. Great music has no age. The joy in Bram’s eyes stirs me. Makes me feel as vibrant as I once was, long ago.

The first time I played this piece for him, I wondered if he might be my other half.

Now I know he is, and that knowledge allows me to play the piece with a new depth of understanding. I didn’t know what love

is then. I do now. We’re children of the sun who found each other.

I close my eyes as I reach the end of the piece. The piece is meant for four hands, but I play a two-hand version that works.

The notes I can’t play ring in my head, Mother’s hands playing them next to me.

The melody brings her back.

Music is time travel.

I’m in charge of the destination.

For the first time in my life, I feel powerful. My destiny is of my own making. It feels wonderful.