Page 47 of Exquisite Things

Valentine’s Day. A day that celebrates the saint who dared perform weddings for Christians who were forbidden from marrying

each other. A day that should therefore belong not to all lovers, but to forbidden lovers. Our day. My day to show Bram how much I love him. He’s chased and celebrated me. Today, I want to celebrate him.

“Good morning, my love,” I mutter, still groggy. Changeling meows happily. Paws gently at my cheek. “Yes, good morning to

you too, but I was talking to—”

I reach for Bram. He’s not there. I check the time. It’s almost eleven. I’ve slept in. I suppose secretly planning a surprise

trip for two in between sessions has exhausted me. I’ve spent months saving enough money from sessions to book what I think

and hope will be a surprise worthy of our forbidden love. I haven’t told him a thing about the trip. Simply asked him to clear

his calendar from this afternoon until tomorrow night. He almost looked disappointed, like he wanted to be the one to plan

our first proper Valentine’s Day together.

Sixty-one years we’ve circled each other. Now, finally, we get to celebrate our love. Our flight leaves in four hours.

I stumble past Lily’s workroom. I imagine she’s in there, working the day away.

I expect to find Bram in the living area, reading quietly so he won’t wake me up.

Maud should be at the bookshop. But when I enter the kitchen, it’s full.

Of people and also of tension. Lily, Maud, Azalea, Poppy, Blossom, and Archie are clustered inside. Bram is missing. Nobody looks happy.

“Ah, Sleeping Beauty has arisen,” Lily says when she sees me. She pulls me close. Her hair is in curlers. Her face isn’t on

yet. It’s rare to see Lily without a single stroke of blush, eyeliner, or lipstick. I love the untouched warmth of her face.

She is the sun we orbit around. I wonder if all families are like this. One member the sun. Another the moon. Me... which

planet would I be?

“It’s ENRAGING,” Maud yells at all of us, and at none of us, and at the walls and the ground. Maud would be Mercury maybe.

Hot and mercurial. A bubble of rage boiling just beneath the surface. “I feel sick to my stomach.”

Lily lets go of me and shines her light on Maud now. “We all do, child. But we can’t do anything reckless—”

“Reckless?” Maud spits her words out, barely breathing. “Our kind don’t need to do nothing reckless to get arrested or worse.

They can stop us for suspecting us. And they always suspect us.”

“What’s going on?” I ask, afraid of the answer. I wanted to start the day with kisses and declarations of love. Dreamed of

sweeping Bram off his feet and into a new city. I wanted to orchestrate the day like a conductor. Packing our bags would be

the overture. Dancing to an accordion player on the Seine would be the crescendo.

No one answers my question. Lily shakes her head, indicating I shouldn’t interrupt. I should let Maud burn like Mercury.

“And you know what pisses me off the most?” Maud asks.

Lily clutches Maud’s hand both tightly and gently. It’s a rare gift Lily has, the ability to be both firm and tender in the same breath. “That human life is not valued equally.”

“But you already knew that, didn’t you?” Poppy asks.

Maud lets out a sad grunt. Almost a laugh. “Sure. Yes. Of course I knew that. What pisses me off the most is that they’re

taking my humanity from me.”

“Don’t let them do that,” Lily urges. “Then they’ve won.”

“But they have won.” Maud’s words sizzle. “Look around. They’ve colonized the world. Put us in prison because they feel like it. Built their

empires with our slave labor. Test their medicines on us, and then make sure we don’t have access to them when they’re approved.

I’m so angry that I can’t even grieve those poor people in Dublin. Forty-eight young souls dead and instead of mourning them

like I want to, I’m just so angry. Thirteen dead and nothing said.”

“What happened?” I ask. Then stupidly, I add, “Is everything okay? Where’s Bram?”

Maud’s nostrils flare. “Everything is certainly not okay, Oliver. And it’s not about Bram. I’m sure wherever he is, he’s just

fine. There was a fire in Dublin. Just like there was a fire in New Cross. Remember?”

“Yes, of course I—Maud, of course I remember the New Cross fire.” I feel a surge of unexpected guilt enter my body, like a

dark and ominous string section. The world goes from major to minor. My romantic visions for the day feel suddenly inaccessible,

replaced by nightmares of that fire almost a month ago, in our city, that ended thirteen young Black lives. It’s all Maud’s

talked about since. That fire seemed to light something in her. A dormant spark that blazes wildly now. She’s not the only

one. The neighborhood has changed since the fire. The same song blaring from every home. Johnny Osbourne.

Thirteen dead and nothing said. Oh, what this world is coming to?

Maud flings her words at me. Filling me in on what I missed by sleeping in. “Thatcher and the queen have written letters of

condolence to the victims of the Stardust fire. And they’re Irish , for fuck’s sake. Mother England hates the Irish, but apparently, they hate us more. Where are our condolences? Where’s our investigation?”

Azalea shakes her head. “They don’t want no investigation. If they find out it was some racist firebomb, which we all know

it probably was—”

Maud looks at me with fire in her eyes. “It wasn’t the firebomb that was racist, was it?”

I smile. She remembers the day we met as vividly as I do. The summoning of this memory allows me to breathe again. Of course

Maud isn’t angry with me. I didn’t light the fire. I don’t put Black kids in jail. I release my guilt and offer Maud a smile.

“No, it was the asshole who put it there,” I say.

Maud gifts me a tiny nod of acknowledgment.

“Which is exactly why they won’t investigate,” Lily says. “Thatcher loves the National Front. They’re doing her dirty work

for her.”

“What do we do?” Maud asks. Then she quietly whispers the lyrics to Johnny’s song. “ Oh, what we gonna do? ”

“We will do what we’ve always done,” Archie says. “We’ll keep living. Not merely existing, as Wilde accused the masses of.

But living . It’s our life they want after all, is it not? We won’t let the National Front or Thatcher or the queen stop us from experiencing

joy. This is our time.”

I flinch when Archie speaks those words.

This is our time. Four words I believed in with all my heart.

Four words that suddenly feel perilous and confusing.

Our. Who is included in when we speak of what is ours ?

And time . What is time anyway? A single year on Neptune amounts to one hundred and sixty-five years on Earth.

Perhaps Bram and I would be Neptune in the galaxy that is our new family. We’re out of sync with the way the rest of them

experience time.

Maud clears her throat. “Easy for you to say, Archiekins .” She pronounces his nickname with disdain. “If you burned in a fire, someone would investigate. Your mother is probably friends with half the nitwit inbred members of the royal

family—”

“Maud, that’s enough of that,” Lily says curtly. “Archie is not the enemy, and you have no idea what he’s been through because

of his mother.”

“I know that,” Maud says with resigned weariness. “I’m sorry, Archie.”

“No need to apologize, my dear,” Archie says calmly. “We’re all others here. All refugees from the same empire.”

“Really? How are you a refugee exactly?” Maud asks Archie. “With your handsome white face and your posh accent. Your parents

probably live not far from here.”

“Unfortunately, they do,” Archie says sadly. “But there may as well be an ocean between us. Perhaps more than an ocean. A

solar system.”

Venus. That’s who I want to be. Not the planet. The goddess of love. This was meant to be my day to let my love shine. To

not let Bram make all the decisions for us.

“Archie, don’t be a fool now,” Lily chastises without cruelty. “You know that comparison is the enemy of peace, and we need

peace in here when there’s war raging outside.”

I know Lily is right. I also know that I was just doing the very same thing Archie did.

Comparing what’s happening now in Brixton to what happened in Boston in 1920.

It’s a version of the same thing, isn’t it?

The powerful trying to keep the powerless in their place. One big swirling galaxy of injustice?

Lily continues, “Your experience, my beloved Archie, isn’t comparable to Maud’s or mine or to any Black person forced to make

a life in countries that still see them as slaves and subjects.”

“Thank you!” Maud says. “Finally, you’re making sense!”

“Child, I always make sense,” Lily says. “Sometimes it’s your listening skills that need work.”

“I’m sorry if that’s how it came out,” Archie says to Maud.

“I suppose you can’t help it,” Maud says sharply.

“Maud.” Lily speaks Maud’s name with the authority of a parent about to lay down the law. “Treat Archie with respect. You

have no idea—”

“If I have no idea, then tell me!” Maud pleads.

Lily simply says, “There are things grown-ups don’t tell children to protect them from the horror of it.”

“Like what?” I ask, curious to know more.

Maud gives me a nod of solidarity. “Yeah, like what?” With Maud’s eyes on me, it’s not Archie’s secret past I’m thinking of.

It’s my own. All the things I hide from these people I love, from my new family. My immortality and eternal youth. But perhaps

more importantly, the heartbreak I suffered because of Harvard, the boys I cared for who died, the family I had to abandon...

Mother. I close my eyes, silently begging God and Mother for forgiveness.

Just then, the slam of a door. Bram’s sunny voice. “Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! Oliver, are you upstairs?”

“In the kitchen!” I yell back.