Page 2 of Kailirex (Brides of the Mylos #6)
CHAPTER 2
STELLA
“Stella Le Bon,” called out Mr. Kaperneski and I stood from the row of chairs lined up neatly on the left side of the stage as viewed by the audience. I crossed over to where he stood behind the podium, placing my hand on the diploma he held out to me.
“Congratulations,” he said and we both turned our faces slightly towards the audience and held our pose for a few seconds so the school’s photographer and my eager relatives and friends could all go crazy snapping pictures. Well, the school’s official photographer wouldn’t, but he surely was taking a few so they could try and sell me a package, and also in case I ended up becoming really famous, the school could add it to their Alumni Wall of Fame or put it in a brochure or whatever.
Then Mr. Kaperneski let go of the beribboned cardboard tube and that was my cue to start exiting stage left. I’d done this whole graduation thing before, and it varied little. My preschool had gone with the novel approach of having us all dress up as storybook knights in costumes of leggings, long sleeved t-shirts, and tunics constructed from silver sequined fabric. The head of the preschool, Mrs. Grünbaum, had dressed up as a medieval queen, a table full of plastic swords next to her which she used one by one to ‘knight’ us each in turn while professing we were ready to do our duty to the Kingdom of Knowledge and go forth and learn. Our parents were handed our diplomas in sealed envelopes after the ceremony. High school and NYU saw me wearing a cap and gown and doing the whole tassel thing while accepting my diploma on a large football field. No doubt I’d be doing that again when I returned to NYU for my next degree.
Twenty-three names later, all of us graduating from Cinematic Nights School of Filmography at last.
“You did it!” my mom cried out, rushing towards me with her arms wide, Dad beaming proudly behind her.
“Yes, well, she always has been an overachiever,” my brother Eric said, with a playful smirk. “Though give me a few years and I’ll have two degrees as well. Though mine will happen to be in the same field of study.”
“And they should give grants for Master’s and PhD’s the same way they do for Bachelors!” our father grumbled. “They like making people go into debt too much.” Pop, Dad’s father, griped.
My brother and I threw each other looks of commiseration. If left unfettered, he would grumble on and on about this subject until someone, perhaps even him, would bring up the Mylos. Neither of us wanted to do that, seeing as I was planning on applying for the Scholarship to pay for my next stint at NYU. Eric was scheduling himself an appointment right along with me, so he could focus on his degree and not have to worry about money to pay for it or his living expenses, the same as I was. We hadn’t told our parents, as while they both approved of the deal with the Mylos, they worried about all the humans who’d left the planet and how they couldn’t get home for Sunday dinner every week.
They fretted about that whenever someone they knew, family or not, joined the military, too. Life for my parents revolved around work and family and that meant Sunday dinners at my mother’s followed by a drive to the nursing home to play Canasta with Nana, as well as huge family holidays spent at the beach house Grandpa Norton, my mother’s grandfather, had bought when my grandmother had been a small child. All the aunts, uncles, and cousins, and even Nana were always there.
“So, who’s hungry?” my cousin Debbie piped up, having caught the look between Eric and myself and knowing how Pop would otherwise get going.
As if these were magic words, Pop snapped right out of his diatribe in order to take charge of our mob.
“We need to get going or we’ll miss our reservation,” he barked. “Everyone know how to get to Benihana?”
We then wasted several more minutes while he had all the drivers huddle around him to make sure they had the right street address to put into their respective Sat Navs. This, of course, meant we were well and truly caught in the middle of all the cars leaving the graduation, and since it was a Friday night, into formidable traffic. Thankfully, Pop had planned ahead and made a reservation accounting for all possible factors, erring on the side of lateness. We all got to Benihana well in time.
“We sure are going to miss you,” my boss at Little Cherubs said.
“You quit?” Mom asked, with a small frown. “Is that wise? Or did you get a new job already?”
All chatter around the table fell silent as everyone looked at me. My brother Eric closed his eyes with a small sigh, then reopened them to jump into the fray for me, ever the gallant older brother.
“The thing is, she and I decided that combining our living expenses made more sense than both of us going through the whole roommate thing again. You know how hard it is to get someone you can trust and get along with who also pays on time and then they leave to move in with friends, or their job takes them away, or they get married, whatever.”
Mom nodded, her lips pursed. “True enough. So you both gave notice and are moving to an apartment that’s too far for her to commute without getting up stupid early? I hope it’s not a long lease since you’re waiting to hear if you got into any of those Masters programs. I’m presuming you’re both going to move to wherever that college is at and share expenses while she works. It’s not like she’s gotten a job in the movies or anything yet.”
“Dora, let them speak,” my Aunt Lucy chided. “They haven’t finished sharing their news yet.”
I smiled tightly. “Actually, we will be Door Dashing together on weekends until the fall semester starts at NYU.”
“You got in at NYU?” Mom exclaimed, looking at my brother.
“I did indeed. And I can do it completely online so I’ll only need to go on campus to use the library on occasion or if I want to see my advisor in person,” he grinned crookedly. “As for the apartment, Stella’s lease ended last week and she’s moved in with me already. Mine goes month to month in June, so we’ll be able to decide if we want to keep it or look for somewhere else less noisy.”
Eric’s apartment had the train rumbling right past, so moving was definitely in the cards.
“It’s so hard to find a good apartment you can afford,” Mom pointed out. “And I don’t know about that Door Dashing business. You know, when you were twelve, your Uncle Frankie’s downstairs neighbor had a nephew who was shot while delivering a pizza for the local pizza shop.”
“We can decide which orders to accept, and I can promise you we will not be heading into any sketchy areas,” Eric promised her.
“So, you got a new job lined up?” my cousin Elle asked. “Or just Door Dashing until you get offered a job in film?”
“I don’t see why she got a degree to teach preschoolers if she really wanted to make movies,” my Uncle Harvey interjected.
“Because I want to work in children’s educational television,” I explained for what must be the umpteenth time. “And besides, I’ll also be going to NYU online this fall. I’m going to take business classes focusing on the entertainment and media fields.”
Eric looked at me proudly. “She wants to be able to do her own show, if necessary, on public access.”
Everyone stared at me as I had suddenly sprouted two extra heads.Our chef must have felt really sorry for me, as he decided to up his game and started juggling his knives in an even more impressive way than before.
“Whoa, look at that,” my nephew Paul gasped, eyes wide at the display.
Thankfully, no one said or asked anything else about mine and Eric’s plans for the rest of the meal. I knew this wouldn’t be the last we heard about it, though. Mom and Pop would call us to “discuss” the matter, and it would also be one of the main topics of discussion at far too many Sunday dinners to come.
I grimaced. If they were in a tizzy about our plans now, wait until they found out we’d gone to the Scholarship Center. We had an appointment the week after next, seven days exactly after the first ever Friendship Day. Hopefully listening to all their grandchildren’s school party plans for the big day would provide enough distraction that we could make it to our appointment without too much more fuss. Sure, we’d still get given the third degree about having taken the risk of getting matched, but truth be told, as far as I was concerned, it wasn’t a risk. My first crush was on the Mylos warrior who graced a poster advertising the program on the subway wall during my freshman year of high school. I’d avidly watched every show with a Mylos sweeping their mate off of their feet as they were matched, Eric teasing me along the way but sitting with me through some of them. He was now tired of the dating scene and wanted to settle down, and the idea of finding he was meant to be mated to a perfect match appealed to him as much as it did me. And that was where he had something else to confess to the family. I’d always known of course, but he wasn’t only into women.
It wasn’t that our family were raging homophobes. It was that as far as we knew, no one else in the family was LGBTQIA or had friends who were. A few co-workers, at best, which had led to remarks such as, “Everyone deserves the right to marry another adult no matter what gender,” and “I really wanted to get a sandwich from Sam’s Deli but the damned road was blocked and you couldn’t get down the sidewalk for all the people because of that damned Pride parade”. So Eric only name dropped the occasional female name and brought all of two women to Sunday dinner over the years, saying if his forever turned out to be a guy, then he’d step out of the closet to the rest of the family. I hated that he felt that way, but I got it.
“Eleven days to go,” he said to me as he started up the car to take us back to his apartment once we’d all said our goodbyes.
“And if you’re matched?” I prodded.
He grinned at me lopsidedly. “Then I’ll get to avoid awkward Sunday dinners until they get used to the fact that I’m bi and mated to an alien. Living on a spaceship would definitely be a perk in this regard.”
“I just hope if you get matched, I do too.”
“Me too,” he replied, acknowledging how we’d always been not just siblings, but also best friends. “Surely fate wouldn’t be so cruel as to split us up.”
I really hoped not. “Alien warriors for two please,” I quipped, holding up a finger as if ordering from a menu. “And make them a Mylos!”
He laughed, shaking his head at me.
“It’ll work out. You’ll see. We’ll either get mated or not, but either way, our schooling and living expenses will be paid for and we’ll be able to stop Door Dashing except to add to your TV show fund.”
“Yeah,” I whispered, looking out the window. “We win either way.” I knew that intellectually but the heart wants what it wants and that was for me and my brother to get a happily ever after both with school and in love. It wasn’t too much to ask, was it?